..LAYOUT 4 THE EQUINOX Vol. I. No. III 1st part October 22, 1989 e.v. key entry and June 25, 1990 e.v. first proof reading against the 1st edition done by Bill Heidrick, T.G. of O.T.O. (further proof reading desirable) (c) O.T.O. disk 1 of 3 This is the XYWrite word processor version. To print, use substitution tables from printer drivers 3G10X.PRN or 3G10X-L.PRN, February 1990 e.v. revision or later (new graphics symbols used this time). A 7-bit ASCII version is also available. O.T.O. P.O.Box 430 Fairfax, CA 94930 USA (415) 454-5176 ---- Messages only. Pages in the original are marked thus at the bottom: {page number} Comments and descriptions are also set off by curly brackets {} Comments and notes not in the original are identified with the initials of the source: AC note = Crowley note. WEH note = Bill Heidrick note, etc. Descriptions of illustrations are not so identified, but are simply in curly brackets. (Addresses and invitations below are not current but copied from the original text of the early part of the 20th century) ************************************************************************ THE EQUINOX No. IV. will contain in its 400 pages: VARIOUS OFFICIAL INSTRUCTION of the A.'. A.'. THE ELEMENTAL CALLS OF KEYS, WITH THE GREAT WATCH TOWERS OF THE UNI- VERSE and their explanation. A complete treatise, fully illustrated, upon the Spirits of the Elements, their names and offices, with the method of calling them forth and controlling them. With an account of The Heptarchical Mystery, The Thirty Aethyrs or Aires with "The Vision and the Voice," being the Cries of the Angels of the Aethyrs, a revelation of the highest truths pertaining to the grade of Magister Templi, and many other matters. Fully illustrated. THE CONTINUATION OF THE HERB DAN- GEROUS. Selections from H. G. Ludlow, "the Hashish- Eater." MR. TODD: A Morality, by the author of "Rosa Mundi." THE DAUGHTER OF THE HORSELEECH, by ETHEL RAMSAY. THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON THE KING. [Continuation. FRATER P.'S EXPERIENCES IN THE EAST. A complete account of the various kinds of Yoga. DIANA OF THE INLET. By KATHERINE S. PRITCHARD. Fully Illustrated. ACROSS THE GULF: An adept's memory of his incarnation in Egypt under the 26th dynasty; with an account of the Passing of the Equinox of Isis. &c. &c. &c. "To be obtained of the" THE EQUINOX, 15 Tavistock Street, W.C. "And through all Booksellers" ----------------------- "Crown 8vo, Scarlet Buckram, pp. 64." This Edition strictly limited to 500 Copies. PRICE 10s A.'. A.'. PUBLICATION IN CLASS B. -------- BOOK 777 THIS book contains in concise tabulated form a comparative view of all the symbols of the great religions of the world; the perfect attributions of the Taro, so long kept secret by the Rosicrucians, are now for the first time published; also the complete secret magical correspondences of the G.'. D.'. and R. R. et A. C. It forms, in short, a complete magical and philosophical dictionary; a key to all religions and to all practical occult working. For the first time Western and Qabalistic symbols have been harmonized with those of Hinduism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Taoism, &c. By a glance at the Tables, anybody conversant with any one system can understand perfectly all others. The "Occult Review" says: "Despite its cumbrous sub-title and high price per page, this work has only to come under the notice o {sic} the right people to be sure of a ready sale. In its author's words, it represents 'an attempt to systematise alike the data of mysticism and the results of comparative religion,' and so far as any book can succeed in such an attempt, this book does succeed; that is to say, it condenses in some sixty pages as much information as many an intelligent reader at the Museum has been able to collect in years. The book proper consists of a Table of 'Correspondences,' and is, in fact, an attempt to reduce to a common denominator the symbolism of as many religious and magical systems as the author is acquainted with. The denominator chosen is necessarily a large one, as the author's object is to reconcile systems which divide all things into 3, 7, 10, 12, as the case may be. Since our expression 'common denominator' is used in a figurative and not in a strictly mathematical sense, the task is less complex than appears at first sight, and the 32 Paths of the Sepher Yetzirah, or Book of Formation of the Qabalah, provide a convenient scale. These 32 Paths are attributed by the Qabalists to the 10 Sephiroth, or Emanations of Deity, and to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which are again subdivided into 3 mother letters, 7 double letters, and 12 simple letters. On this basis, that of the Qabalistic 'Tree of Life,' as a certain arrangement of the Sephiroth and 22 remaining Paths connecting them is termed, the author has constructed no less than 183 tables. "The Qabalistic information is very full, and there are tables of Egyptian and Hindu deities, as well as of colours, perfumes, plants, stones, and animals. The information concerning the tarot and geomancy exceeds that to be found in some treatises devoted exclusively to those subjects. The author appears to be acquainted with Chinese, Arabic, and other classic texts. Here your reviewer is unable to follow him, but his Hebrew does credit alike to him and to his printer. Among several hundred words, mostly proper names, we found and marked a few misprints, but subsequently discovered each one of them in a printed table of errata, which we had overlooked. When one remembers the misprints in 'Agrippa' and the fact that the ordinary Hebrew compositor and reader is no more fitted for this task than a boy cognisant of no more than the shapes of the Hebrew letters, one wonders how many proofs there were and what the printer's bill was. A knowledge of the Hebrew alphabet and the Qabalistic Tree of Life is all that is needed to lay open to the reader the enormous mass of information contained in this book. The 'Alphabet of Mysticism,' as the author says ___ several alphabets we should prefer to say ___ is here. Much that has been jealously and foolishly kept secret in the past is here, but though our author has secured for his work the "imprimatur" of some body with the mysterious title of the A.'. A.'., and though he remains himself anonymous, he appears to be no mystery-monger. Obviously he is widely read, but he makes no pretence that he has secrets to reveal. On the contrary, he says, 'an indicible arcanum is an arcanum which "cannot" be revealed.' The writer of that sentence has learned at least one fact not to be learned from books. "G.C.J." RIDER'S LIBRARY OF ALCHEMICAL PHILOSOPHY THE HERMETIC AND ALCHEMICAL WRITINGS OF AUREOLUS PHILIPPUS THEOPHRASTUS BOMBAST OF HOHENHEIM, CALLED PARACELSUS THE GREAT, now for the first time translated into English. Edited with a Biographical Preface, Elucidatory notes, and a copious Hermetic Vocabulary and Index, by ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE. In Two Volumes, Dark Red Cloth, medium 4to, gilt tops, 25s. net. Vol. I., 394 pp.; Vol. II., 396 pp. THE TURBA PHILOSOPHORUM, or Assembly of the Sages. An Ancient Alchemical Treatise, with the chief Readings of the Shorter Codex, Parallels from Greek Alchemists, and Explanations of obscure terms. Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by A.E. WAITE. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net. A great symposium or debate of the Adepts assembled in convocation. The work ranks next to Gober as a fountain-head of alchemy in Western Europe. It reflects the earliest Byzantine, Syrian and Arabian writers. This famous work is accorded the highest place among the works of Alchemical Philosophy which are available for the students in the English language. THE NEW PEARL OF GREAT PRICE. the Treatise of Bonus concerning the Treasure of the Philosopher's Stone. Translated from the Latin. Edited by A. E. WAITE. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net. One of the classics of alchemy, with a very curious account, accompanied by emblematical figures showing the generation and birth of metals, the death of those that are base and their resurrection in the prefect forms of gold and silver. A GOLDEN AND BLESSED CASKET OF NATURE'S MARVELS. BY BENEDICTUS FIGULUS. With a Life of the Author. Edited by A. E. WAITE. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net. A collection of short treatises by various authors belonging to the school of Paracelsus, dealing with the mystery of the Philosopher's Stone, the revelation of Hermes, the great work of the Tincture, the glorious antidote of Potable Gold. Benedictus Figulus connects by imputation with the early Rosicrucians. THE TRIUMPHAL CHARIOT OF ANTIMONY. BY BASIL VALENTINE. Translated from the Latin, including the Commentary of Kerckringius, and Biographical and Critical Introduction. Edited by A. E. WAITE. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net. A valuable treatise by one who is reputed a great master of alchemical art. It connects practical chemistry with the occult theory of transmutation. The antimonial Fire-Stone is said to cure diseases in man and to remove the imperfection of metals. THE ALCHEMICAL WRITINGS OF EDWARD KELLY. From the Latin Edition of 1676. With a Biographical Introduction, an Account of Kelly's relations with Dr. Dee, and a transcript of the "Book of St. Dunstan." Edited by A. E. WAITE. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net. A methodised summary of the best Hermetic philosophers, including a discourse on Terrestrial Astronomy, in which the planets are replaced by metals, and instead of an account of stellar influences we have the laws governing metallic conversion. YOUR FORTUNE IN YOUR NAME, OR KABALISTIC ASTROLOGY. New edition, largely revised. Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, 96 pp., 2s. 6d. net. By "SEPHARIAL." A MANUAL OF CARTOMANCY, Fortune-Telling and Occult divination, including the Oracle of Human Destiny, Cagliostro's Mystic Alphabet of the Magi, &c. &c. Fourth edition, greatly enlarged and revised, by GRAND ORIENT. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 252 pp., 2s. 6d. net. COLLECTANEA CHEMICA. Being certain Select Treatises on Alchemy and Hermetic medicine. By EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES, &c. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. net. CONTENTS ___ The Secret of the Immortal Liquor called Alkahest ___ Aurum Potabile ___ The Admirable Efficacy of the True Oil of Sulphur Fire ___ The Stone of the Philosophers ___ The Bosom Book of Sir George Ripley ___ The Preparation of the Sophic Mercury. THE HERMETIC MUSEUM, Restored and Enlarged: most faithfully instructing all disciples of the Sopho-Spagyric art how that greatest and truest medicine of the Philosopher's Stone may be found and held. Now first done into English from the Latin original published at Frankfort in the year 1678. Containing 22 celebrated alchemical tracts. Translated from the Latin and edited by A. E. WAITE. With numerous most interesting engravings. Fcap. quarto, 2 vols. Very scarce, 35s. AZOTH, or The Star in the East. A New Light of Mysticism. By ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE. Imperial 8vo, pp. xvi + 239. Original edition in special binding. Price 5s. A presentation of mystic doctrine and symbolism in the light of Christian Teaching and Hermetic philosophy; evolution in the Light of Mysticism; the way of attainment; and the interior life from the mystic standpoint. "Note. ___ Many old books on Astrology and Alchemical Science are also kept" "in stock. Write for latest new and second-hand catalogues." ____________________ WILLIAM RIDER & SON, Ltd., 164 Aldersgate St., London. E.C. The Star in the West BY CAPTAIN J. F. C. FULLER " ""FOURTH LARGE EDITION NOW IN PREPARATION" THROUGH THE EQUINOX AND ALL BOOKSELLERS SIX SHILLINGS NET ------------------------------------- A highly original study of morals and religion by a new writer, who is as entertaining as the average novelist is dull. Nowadays human thought has taken a brighter place in the creation: our emotions are weary of bad baronets and stolen wills; they are now only excited by spiritual crises, catastrophes of the reason, triumphs of the intelligence. In these fields Captain Fuller is a master dramatist. ------------------------------------- œ10 REWARD Ten Pounds ("œ"10) will be paid by the Proprietors of THE EQUINOX for a copy of the Journal containing the following passage, which has been anonymously sent to this office, or for such information as may enable them to trace the perpetrators. (TORN EDGE) the circumstances. _________________ Cox, Box, Equinox, McGregors are coming to Town; Some in rags, and some on jags, And the Swami upside down. _________________ Cran, Cran, McGregor's man Served a writ, and away he ran. _________________ Cadbury Jones! Stop your groans, And open the Family Bible, I fancy cocoa Would tint your boko Less than Criminal Libel. _________________ What did Waistcott Wynn? Anyway, he lost his shirt. _________________ See-Saw, Bernard Shaw Sold his beef to live upon straw. Wasn't he a thousand miles From sense when he went to Eustace Miles? _________________ Jagmatite said (TORN EDGE) The Back contains some account of a football match played on some Saturday in January, apparently in Lancashire. The envelope was addressed in female script, and bears postmark "Rock Ferry." Besides the senseless vulgarity and scurrility of this disgusting stuff, it implies the false and malicious statement that a writ has been served upon us; and we shall proceed according to law, if we can trace the offenders. A GREEN GARLAND By V. B. NEUBURG Green paper cover. 1s. 6d. net _______________ "As far as the verse is concerned there is in this volume something more than mere promise; the performance is at times remarkable; there is beauty not only of thought and invention ___ and the invention is of a positive kind ___ but also of expression and rhythm. There is a lilt in Mr. Neuburg's poems; he has the impulse to sing, and makes his readers feel that impulse." "The Morning Post", May 21, 1908. "There is a certain given power in some of the imaginings concerning death, as 'The Dream' and 'the Recall,' and any reader with a liking for verse of an unconventional character will find several pieces after his taste." "The Daily Telegraph", May 29, 1908. "Here is a poet of promise." ___ "The Daily Chronicle", May 13, 1908. "It is not often that energy and poetic feeling are united so happily as in this little book." ___ "The Morning Leader", July 10, 1908. There is promise and some fine lines in these verses." "The Times", July 11, 1908. ___________________ " ""To be obtained of" "THE YOUNG CAMBRIDGE PRESS," 4 MILL STREET, BEDFORD London: PROBSTHAIN & CO. And all Booksellers. "This page is reserved for Official Pronouncements by the Chancellor" " of the A".'." A".'.] Persons wishing for information, assistance, further interpretation, etc., are requested to communicate with THE CHANCELLOR OF THE A.'. A.'. c/o THE EQUINOX, 124 Victoria Street, S.W. Telephone 3210 VICTORIA, or to call at that address by appointment. A representative will be there to meet them. ---------------------- Probationers are reminded that the object of Probations and Ordeals is one: namely, to select Adepts. But the method appears twofold: (i) to fortify the fit; (ii) to eliminate the unfit. ---------------------- The Chancellor of the A.'. A.'. wishes to announce that those whom he represents are only responsible for the Publications on which their Imprimatur is set; the rest of THE EQUINOX is edited as literary and commercial expediency may suggest to the person responsible. THE EQUINOX " "The Editor will be glad to consider" "contributions and to return such as" "are unacceptable if stamps are enclosed" " for the purpose" THE EQUINOX THE OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE A.'. A.'. THE REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC ILLUMINISM An. VI VOL. I. NO. III. Sun in Aries MARCH MCMX O.S. "THE METHOD OF SCIENCE---THE AIM OF RELIGION" LONDON SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO. LTD. CONTENTS PAGE EDITORIAL 1 LIBER XIII 3 AHA! BY ALEISTER CROWLEY 9 THE HERB DANGEROUS ___ (PART III) THE POEM OF HASHISH. BY CHARLES BAUDELAIRE (Translated by ALEISTER CROWLEY) 55 AN ORIGIN. BY VICTOR B. NEUBURG 115 THE SOUL-HUNTER 119 MADELEINE. BY ARTHUR F. GRIMBLE 129 THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON THE KING (BOOK II ___ "continued") 133 THE COMING OF APOLLO. BY VICTOR B. NEUBURG 281 THE BRIGHTON MYSTERY. BY GEORGE RAFFALOVICH 287 REVIEWS 113, 285, 304 THE SHADOWY DILL-WATERS. BY A. QUILLER, JR. 327 "SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT" LIBER DCCCCLXIII ___ THE TREASURE-HOUSE OF IMAGES ILLUSTRATIONS THE SLOPES OF ABIEGNUS "Facing page" 4 THE STUDENT " 10 THE COMPLETE SYMBOL OF THE ROSE AND CROSS " 210 THE ELEMENTAL TABLETS AND CHERUBIC EMBLEMS " 212 THE LID OF THE PASTOS " 218 THE CEILING OF THE VAULT¿ ³ THE FLOOR OF THE VAULT ³ à " 222 THE CIRCULAR ALTAR ³ ³ THE ROSE AND CROSS Ù "SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT" THE TRIANGLE OF THE UNIVERSE " 4 THE GREEK CROSS OF THE ZODIAC " 70 {WEH NOTE: Two different versions of this editorial exist in separate marketings of the 1st edition. Both will be given. This first one seems to be the earlier version.} EDITORIAL HAPPY is the movement that has no history! At the beginning of our second year we have little to record but quiet steady growth, a gradual spreading of our Tree of Knowledge, a gradual awakening of interest in all parts of the earth, a gradual access of fellow-workers, some young and enthusiastic, others already weary of the search for Truth in a world where so many offer the Stone of dogma, so few the Bread of experience. There! we had nothing to say, and we have said it very nicely. Floreas! * * * * * We must apologise for the necessity of holding over our edition of Sir Edward Kelly's account of the Forty-Eight Angelical Keys, and other important articles. Considerations of space were imperative. * * * * * Mr. H. Sheidan-Bickers will lecture on behalf of THE EQUINOX during the year. We shall be glad if our readers will arrange with him through us to speak in their towns. Mr. Bickers makes no charge for lecturing, and THE EQUINOX may assist if desired in meeting the necessary expenses. {1} NOTES OF THE SEMESTER MR. SHERIDAN-BICKERS held a large and very successful meeting at Cambridge in November. We beg to extend our warmest sympathies to Brother Aloysius Crowley. The gang of soi-disant Rosicrucian swindlers whose profits have suffered through our exposures, having failed to frighten Mr. Aleister Crowley, decided to assassinate him. Their hired ruffians seem to have been knaves as clumsy as themselves, and Brother Aloysius suffered in his stead, escaping death by a miracle. If we do not extend our sympathy to Mr. Aleister Crowley also, it is from a conviction that he has probably deserved anything that he may get. In order to cope with the constantly increasing budget of letters of inquiry and sympathy from every part of the world, we have moved into new premises at 124 Victoria Street, Westminster, to which address all communications should be directed. Callers will always be welcome, but it is advisable to make appointments by letter or telephone. {2} {WEH NOTE: Of the two different versions of this editorial found in different copies of the 1st edition, this seems to be the later version. It is found tipped in to some copies where the original pages 1-2 have been cut away.} EDITORIAL HAPPY is the movement that has no history! At the beginning of our second year we have little to record but quiet steady growth, a gradual spreading of our Tree of Knowledge, a gradual awakening of interest in all parts of the earth, a gradual access of fellow-workers, some young and enthusiastic, others already weary of the search for Truth in a world where so many offer the Stone of dogma, so few the Bread of experience. There! we had nothing to say, and we have said it very nicely. Floreas! * * * * * We must apologise for the necessity of holding over our edition of Sir Edward Kelly's account of the Forty-Eight Angelical Keys, and other important articles. Considerations of space were imperative. * * * * * Two days after the bound advance copies of this Number were delivered by the printer, an order was made restraining publication, continued by Mr. JUSTICE BUCKNILL, and dissolved by the Court of Appeal. {1} NOTES OF THE SEMESTER MR. SHERIDAN-BICKERS held a large meeting at Cambridge in November, as successful as one would expect from the intellectual preeminence of our great university. We beg to extend our warmest sympathies to Brother Aloysius Crowley. It seems possible that some gang of swindlers, fearing exposure, and having failed to frighten Mr. Aleister Crowley, decided to assassinate him. Their hired ruffians seem to have been knaves as clumsy as themselves, and Brother Aloysius suffered in his stead, escaping death by a miracle. If we do not extend our sympathy to Mr. Aleister Crowley also, it is from a conviction that he has probably deserved anything that he may get. In order to cope with the constantly increasing budget of letters of inquiry and sympathy from every part of the world, we have moved into new premises at 124 Victoria Street, Westminster, to which address all communications should be directed. Callers will always be welcome, but it is advisable to make appointments by letter or telephone. {2} LIBER XIII VEL GRADUUM MONTIS ABIEGNI A SYLLABUS OF THE STEPS UPON THE PATH A.'. A.'. Publication in Class D. Issued by Order: D.D.S. 7ø = 4ø Praemonstrator O.S.V. 6ø = 5ø Imperator N.S.F. 5ø = 6ø Cancellarius 51. Let not the failure and the pain turn aside the worshippers. The foundations of the pyramid were hewn in the living rock ere sunset; did the king weep at dawn that the crown of the pyramid was yet unquarried in the distant land? 52. There was also a humming-bird that spake unto the horned cerastes, and prayed him for poison. And the great snake of Khem the Holy One, the royal Uraeus serpent, answered him and said: 53. I sailed over the sky of Nu in the car called Millions-of-Years, and I saw not any creature upon Seb that was equal to me. The venom of my fang is the inheritance of my father, and of my father's father; and how shall I give it unto thee? Live thou and thy children as I and my fathers have lived, even unto an hundred millions of generations, and it may be that the mercy of the Mighty Ones may bestow upon thy children a drop of the poison of eld. 54. Then the humming-bird was afflicted in his spirit, and he flew unto the flowers, and it was as if naught had been spoken between them. Yet in a little while a serpent struck him that he died. 55. But an Ibis that meditated upon the bank of Nile the beautiful god listened and heard. And he laid aside his Ibis ways, and became as a serpent saying Peradventure in an hundred millions of millions of generations of my children, they shall attain to a drop of the poison of the fang of the Exalted One. 56. And behold! ere the moon waxed thrice he became an Uraeus serpent, and the poison of the fang was established in him and his seed even for ever and for ever. LIBER LXV. CAP. V {4} {Illustration facing page 4 partially described: This is an ornamented diagram of the Tree of Life, from Tipheret downward. At the bottom of the figure is a solid line, below it the words: "PROBATIONER Liber LXI and LXV [In certain cases Ritual LXXVIII.]" Above this line, to the left: "PORTA", and to the right "PORTAE". A triple ringed circle rests on this base line, for Malkut. Arched between the rings at the bottom "RITUAL DCLXXI." Written within the circle are the words: "The Four Powers of The Sphinx NEOPHYTE. Liber VII. The Building of the Magic Pentacle." Extending vertically from the circle of Malkut is the path of Taw, with these words: "Control of the Astral Plane". This path connects to the circle representing Yesod. Extending at an angle from the circle of Malkut to the left is the path of Shin, with these words: "Meditation Practice Equivalent to Ritual CXX". This path connects to the circle representing Hod. Extending at an angle from the circle of Malkut to the right is the path of Qof, with these words: "Methods of Divination". This path connects to the circle representing Netzach. The ringed circle representing Yesod has "RITUAL CXX" arched between its rings at the bottom and the following words written inside: "Posture Hatha Yoga Control of Breathing. ZELATOR Liber CCXX The Forging of the Magic Sword." Extending upward from the circle of Yesod is the path of Samekh, interrupted by the crossing path of Peh. These words are on it: "Rising on the Planes". This path is also interrupted by the center of a crescent before continuing on to the circle representing Tipheret. Extending at an angle from the circle of Yesod to the left is the path of Resh, with these words: "Meditation Practice equivalent to Ritual DCLXXI". This path connects to the circle representing Hod. Extending at an angle from the circle of Yesod to the right is the path of Tzaddi (as Crowley considered at this time), with these words: "Meditation Practice on Expansion of Consciousness". This path connects to the circle representing Netzach. The ringed circle representing Hod has "NO RITUAL" arched between its rings at the bottom and the following words written inside: "The Qabalah Liber DCCLXXVII Gana Yoga Control of Speech PRACTICUS. Liber XXVII The Casting of the Magic Cup" Extending horizontally to the right from the circle of Hod is the path of Peh, with these words: "Ritual & Meditation Practice to Destroy Thoughts". This path connects to the circle representing Netzach. Extending at an angle from the circle of Hod to the right is the path of Ayin, with these words: "Talismans Evocations". This path is interrupted by the left horn of a crescent moon and then continues on to the circle representing Tipheret. Extending vertically upward from the circle of Hod is part of the path of Mem, with these words: "Leads to Grade of (underline bifurcates path lengthwise) Adeptus Major". The path breaks at top without closure. The ringed circle representing Netzach has "NO RITUAL" arched between its rings at the bottom and the following words written inside: "Devotion to the Order Bhakti Yoga Control of Action PHILOSOPHUS. Liber DCCCXIII The Cutting of the Magic Wand" Extending at an angle from the circle of Netzach to the left is the path of Nun, with these words: "Mahasatipatthana Etc" This path is interrupted by the right horn of a crescent moon and then continues on to the circle representing Tipheret. Extending vertically upward from the circle of Netzach is part of the path of Koph, with these words: "Leads to Grade of (underline bifurcates path lengthwise) Adeptus Exemptus". The path breaks at top without closure. A solid line is drawn behind the paths, from the upper arc of the circle of Hod to that of the circle of Netzach. Above it are the words "PORTA COLLEGII ad S.S." A crescent moon depends from the circle representing Tipheret, body centered on the intersection of the "PROTA COL..." and the path of Samekh, horns touching the outer limit of the circle of Tipheret at the terminus of the horizontal diameter of that circle. Within the crescent are the words: "Control of Thought. Raja Yoga Harmonizing of the Knowledge & Powers already acquired. Liber Mysteriorum The Light- DOMINVS LIMINIS Lamp -ing of the magic" The ringed circle representing Tipheret has "RITUAL VIII" arched between the rings at the bottom. Inside is circumscribed an upright pentagram with the following in the averse pentagon formed by its lines: "ADEPTVS MINOR". Between the points, inside the circle are these words, clockwise from the top right: "Ritual", "Revealed", "in Vision", "of Eighth", "Aethyr". Finally, there is a half-glory radiant about the upper half of the circle representing Tipheret. This is composed of 26 spikes, black with a hollow flame like a tear-drop extending into each. The bulbs of the flame-drops define an arch. The bottom of the arch is defined by an arc concentric with the Tipheret circle, and the edges curve up to meet the edges of the half- glory. The following words are inside this arch: "The Knowledge & Conversation of the HOLY GUARDIAN ANGEL".} LIBER XIII VEL GRADUUM MONTIS ABIEGNI A SYLLABUS OF THE STEPS UPON THE PATH " ""Quote LXV. Cap. V. vv. 52-56"1 1. "The Probationer." His duties are laid down in Paper A, Class D. Being "without," they are vague and general. He receives Liber LXI. and LXV. [Certain Probationers are admitted after six months or more to Ritual XXVIII.] At the end of the Probation he passes Ritual DCLXXI., which constitutes him a Neophyte. 2. "The Neophyte." His duties are laid down in Paper B, Class D. He receives Liber VII. Examination in Liber O, Caps I.-IV., Theoretical and Practical. Examination in the Four Powers of the Sphinx. Practical. Four tests are set. Further, he builds up the magic Pentacle. Finally he passes Ritual CXX., which constitutes him a Zelator. {5} 3. "The Zelator." His duties are laid down in Paper C, Class D. He receives Liber CCXX., XXVII., and DCCCXIII. Examinations in Posture and Control of Breath (see EQUINOX No. I). Practical. Further, he is given two meditation-practices corresponding to the two rituals DCLXXI. and CXX. (Examination is only in the knowledge of, and some little practical acquaintance with, these meditations. The complete results, if attained, would confer a much higher grade.) Further, he forges the magic Sword. No ritual admits to the grade of Practicus, which is conferred by authority when the task of the Zelator is accomplished. 4. "The Practicus." His duties are laid down in Paper D, Class D. Instruction and Examination in the Qabalah and Liber DCCLXXVII. Instruction in Philosophical Meditation (Ghana-Yoga).2 Examination in some one mode of divination: "e.g.", Geomancy, Astrology, the Tarot. Theoretical. He is given a meditation-practice on Expansion of Consciousness. He is given a meditation-practice in the destruction of thoughts. Instruction and Examination in Control of Speech. Practical. Further, he casts the magic Cup. No ritual admits to the grade of Philosophus, which is {6} conferred by authority when the Task of the Practicus is accomplished. 5. "The Philosophus." His duties are laid down in Paper E, Class D. He practises Devotion to the Order. 1 WEH NOTE --- This line seems a printer's error, the quotation was made on page 4. 2 All these instructions will be issued openly in THE EQUINOX in due course, where this has not already been done. Instruction and Examination in Methods of Meditation by Devotion (Bhakti- Yoga). Instruction and Examination in Construction and Consecration of Talismans, and in Evocation. Theoretical and Practical. Examination in Rising on the Planes (Liber O, Caps. V., VI.). Practical. He is given a meditation-practice on the Senses, and the Sheaths of the Self, and the Practice called Mahasatipatthana. (See The Sword of Song, "Science and Buddhism." Instruction and Examination in Control of Action. Further, he cuts the Magic Wand. Finally, the Title of Dominus Liminis is conferred upon him. He is given meditation-practices on the Control of Thought, and is instructed in Raja-Yoga. He receives Liber Mysteriorum and obtains a perfect understanding of the Formulae of Initiation. He meditates upon the diverse knowledge and power that he has acquired, and harmonises it perfectly. Further, he lights the Magic Lamp. At last, Ritual VIII. admits him to the grade of Adeptus Minor. "The Adeptus Minor." His duty is laid down in Paper F, Class D. {7} It is to follow out the instruction given in the Vision of the Eighth AEthyr for the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. [NOTE. This is in truth the sole task; the others are useful only as adjuvants to and preparations for the One Work. Moreover, once this task has been accomplished, there is no more need of human help or instruction; for by this alone may the highest attainment be reached. All these grades are indeed but convenient landmarks, not necessarily significant. A person who had attained them all might be immeasurably the inferior of one who had attained none of them; it is Spiritual Experience alone that counts in the Result; the rest is but Method. Yet it is important to possess knowledge and power, provided that it be devoted wholly to that One Work.] {8} AHA! AHA! THE SEVENFOLD MYSTERY OF THE INEFFABLE LOVE; THE COMING OF THE LORD IN THE AIR AS KING AND JUDGE OF THIS CORRUPTED WORLD; WHEREIN UNDER THE FORM OF A DISCOURSE BETWEEN MARSYAS AN ADEPT AND OLYMPAS HIS PUPIL THE WHOLE SECRET OF THE WAY OF INITIATION IS LAID OPEN FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END; FOR THE INSTRUCTION OF THE LITTLE CHILDREN OF THE LIGHT. WRITTEN IN TREMBLING AND HUMILITY FOR THE BRETHREN OF THE A.'. A.'. BY THEIR VERY DUTIFUL SERVANT, AN ASPIRANT TO THEIR SUBLIME ORDER, ALEISTER CROWLEY {Illustration facing page 10 partly described: This is a collotype in bright crimson. It is a photo of Crowley in black robe, only visible from diaphragm up. His elbows rest on a table before him, and his hands form the sign of the "horns of Horus" against his face on a level with his eyes. His hood is turned back and pulled on as a hat, showing the eye in the triangle and forming a rough triangle in cloth about that device. He wears a serpent ring on the third finger of his right hand. On the table to the left, in the corner of the photo, is a large and circular honey topaz set in a vermilion cross (colors from other sources). A ribbon is attached to the cross. To the right is a standing book, evidently Crowley's magical diary. This book is bound in what looks like red Moroccan leather, chased in gold and embossed (conjectured from surviving diaries of Crowley's) The spine of the book has "PERDURABOMAGISTER" vertically on it. The "P" has Alpha and Omega to either side, and the last "R" has "2" to the left and "4" to the right. The cover board is engraved with a large pentagram in a circle. The pentagram is interlaced as envoking earth would form, and there is a left eye of Horus in the center.} THE ARGUMENTATION A LITTLE before Dawn, the pupil comes to greet his Master, and begs instruction. Inspired by his Angel, he demands the Doctrine of being rapt away into the Knowledge and Conversation of Him. The Master discloses the doctrine of Passive Attention or Waiting. This seeming hard to the Pupil, it is explained further, and the Method of Resignation, Constancy, and Patience inculcated. The Paradox of Equilibrium. The necessity of giving oneself wholly up the the new element. Egoism rebuked. The Master, to illustrate this Destruction of the Ego, describes the Visions of Dhyana. He further describes the defence of the Soul against assailing Thoughts, and shows that the duality of Consciousness is a blasphemy against the Unity of God; so that even the thought called God is a denial of God-as-He-is-in- Himself. The pupil sees nothing but a blank midnight in this Emptying of the Soul. He is shown that this is the necessary condition of Illumination. Distinction is further made between these three Dhyanas, and those early visions in which things appear as objective. With these three Dhyanas, moreover, are Four other of the Four Elements: and many more. Above these is the Veil of Paroketh. Its guardians. The Rosy Cross lies beyond this veil, and therewith the vision called Vishvarupadarshana. Moreover, there is the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. The infinite number and variety of these Visions. The impossibility of revealing all these truths to the outer and uninitiated world. The Vision of the Universal Peacock ___ Atmadarshana. The confusion of the Mind, and the Perception of its self-contradiction. The Second Veil ___ the Veil of the Abyss. The fatuity of Speech. {11} A discussion as to the means by which the vision arises in the pure Soul is useless; suffice it that in the impure Soul no Vision will arise. The practical course is therefore to cleanse the Soul. The four powers of the Sphinx; even adepts hardly attain to one of them! The final Destruction of the Ego. The Master confesses that he has lured the disciple by the promise of Joy, as the only thing comprehensible by him, although pain and joy are transcended even in early visions. Ananda (bliss) ___ and its opposite ___ mark the first steps of the path. Ultimately all things are transcended; and even so, this attainment of Peace is but as a scaffolding to the Palace of the King. The sheaths of the soul. The abandonment of all is necessary; the adept recalls his own tortures, as all that he loved was torn away. The Ordeal of the Veil of the Abyss; the Unbinding of the Fabric of Mind, and its ruin. The distinction between philosophical credence and interior certitude. Sammasati ___ the trance wherein the adept perceives his causal connection with the Universe; past, present, and future. Mastering the Reason, he becomes as a little child, and invokes his Holy Guardian Angel, the Augoeides. Atmadarshana arising is destroyed by the Opening of the Eye of Shiva; the annihilation of the Universe,. The adept is destroyed, and there arises the Master of the Temple. The pupil, struck with awe, proclaims his devotion to the Master; whereat the latter bids him rather unite himself with the Augoeides. Yet, following the great annihilation, the adept reappears as an Angel to instruct men in this doctrine. The Majesty of the Master described. The pupil, wonder-struck, swears to attain, and asks for further instruction. The Master describes the Eight Limbs of Yoga. The pupil lamenting the difficulty of attainment, the Master shows forth the sweetness of the hermit's life. One doubt remains: will not the world be able instantly to recognise the Saint? The Master replies that only imperfect Saints reveal themselves as such. Of these are {12} the cranks and charlatans, and those that fear and deny Life. But let us fix our thoughts on Love, and not on the failings of others! The Master invokes the Augoeides; the pupil through sympathy is almost rapt away. The Augoeides hath given the Master a message; namely, to manifest the New Way of the Equinox of Horus, as revealed in Liber Legis. He does so, and reconciles it with the Old Way by inviting the Test of Experiment. They would go therefore to the Desert or the Mountains ___ nay! here and now shall it be accomplished. Peace to all beings! {13} AHA! OLYMPAS. Master, ere the ruby Dawn Gild the dew of leaf and lawn, Bidding the petals to unclose Of heaven's imperishable Rose, Brave heralds, banners flung afar Of the lone and secret star, I come to greet thee. Here I bow To earth this consecrated brow! As a lover woos the Moon Aching in a silver swoon, I reach my lips towards thy shoon, Mendicant of the mystic boon! MARSYAS. What wilt thou? OLYMPAS. Let mine Angel say! "Utterly to be rapt away!" MARSYAS. How, whence, and whither? OLYMPAS. By my kiss From that abode to this ___ to this!" My wings? MARSYAS. Thou hast no wings. But see An eagle sweeping from the Byss Where God stands. Let him ravish thee, And bear thee to a boundless bliss! {15} OLYMPAS. How should I call him? How beseech? MARSYAS. Silence is lovelier than Speech. Only on a windless tree Falls the dew, Felicity! One ripple on the water mars The magic mirror of the Stars. OLYMPAS. My soul bends to the athletic stress Of God's immortal loveliness. Tell me, what wit avails the clod To know the nearness of its God? MARSYAS. First, let the soul be poised, and fledge Truth's feather on mind's razor-edge. Next, let no memory, feeling, hope Stain all its starless horoscope. Last, let it be content, twice void; Not to be suffered or enjoyed; Motionless, blind and deaf and dumb --- So may it to its kingdom come! OLYMPAS. Dear master, can this be? The wine Embittered with dark discipline? For the soul loves her mate, the sense. MARSYAS. This bed is sterile. Thou must fence Thy soul from all her foes, the creatures That by their soft and siren natures Lure thee to shipwreck! OLYMPAS. Thou hast said: "God is in all." MARSYAS. In sooth. OLYMPAS. Why dread The Godhood? {16} MARSYAS. Only as the thought Is God, adore it. But the soul creates Misshapen fiends, incestuous mates. Slay these: they are false shadows of The never-waning moon of love. OLYMPAS. What thought is worthy? MARSYAS. Truly none Save one, in that it is but one. Keep the mind constant; thou shalt see Ineffable felicity. Increase the will, and thou shalt find It hath the strength to be resigned. Resign the will; and from the string Will's arrow shall have taken wing, And from the desolate abode Found the immaculate heart of God! OLYMPAS. The word is hard! MARSYAS. All things excite Their equal and their opposite. Be great, and thou shalt be ___ how small! Be naught, and thou shalt be the All! Eat not; all meat shall fill thy mouth: Drink, and thy soul shall die of drouth! Fill thyself; and that thou seekest Is diluted to its weakest. Empty thyself; the ghosts of night Flee before the living Light. Who clutches straws is drowned; but he That hath the secret of the sea, Lives with the whole lust of his limbs, {17} Takes hold of water's self, and swims. See, the ungainly albatross Stumbles awkwardly across Earth ___ one wing-beat, and he flies Most graceful gallant in the skies! So do thou leave thy thoughts, intent On thy new noble element! Throw the earth shackles off, and cling To what imperishable thing Arises from the Married death Of thine own self in that whereon Thou art fixed. OLYMPAS. Then all life's loyal breath Is a waste wind. All joy forgone, I must strive ever? MARSYAS. Cease to strive! Destroy this partial I, this moan Of an hurt beast! Sores keep alive By scratching. Health is peace. Unknown And unexpressed because at ease Are the Most High Congruities. OLYMPAS. Then death is thine "attainment"? I Can do no better than to die! MARSYAS. Indeed, that "I" that is not God Is but a lion in the road! Knowest thou not (even now!) how first The fetters of Restriction burst? In the rapture of the heart Self hath neither lot nor part. {18} MARSYAS. Tell me, dear master, how the bud First breaks to brilliance of bloom: What ecstasy of brain and blood Shatters the seal upon the tomb Of him whose gain was the world's loss Our father Christian Rosycross! MARSYAS. First, one is like a gnarled old oak On a waste heath. Shrill shrieks the wind. Night smothers earth. Storm swirls to choke The throat of silence! Hard behind Gathers a blacker cloud than all. But look! but look! it thrones a ball Of blistering fire. It breaks. The lash Of lightning snakes him forth. One crash Splits the old tree. One rending roar! --- And night is darker than before. OLYMPAS. Nay, master, master! Terror hath So fierce an hold upon the path? Life must lie crushed, a charred black swath, In that red harvest's aftermath! MARSYAS. Life lives. Storm passes. Clouds dislimn. The night is clear. And now to him Who hath endured is given the boon Of an immeasurable moon. The air about the adept congeals To crystal; in his heart he feels One needle pang; then breaks that splendour Infinitely pure and tender ... ___ And the ice drags him down! {19} OLYMPAS. But may Our trembling frame, our clumsy clay, Endure such anguish? MARSYAS. In the worm Lurks an unconquerable germ Identical. A sparrow's fall Were the Destruction of the All! More; know that this surpasses skill To express its ecstasy. The thrill Burns in the memory like the glory Of some far beaconed promontory Where no light shines but on the comb Of breakers, flickerings of the foam! OLYMPAS. The path ends here? MARSYAS. Ingenuous one! The path ___ the true path ___ scarce begun. When does the night end? OLYMPAS. When the sun, Crouching below the horizon, Flings up his head, tosses his mane, Ready to leap. MARSYAS. Even so. Again The adept secures his subtle fence Against the hostile shafts of sense, Pins for a second his mind; as you May have seen some huge wrestler do. With all his gathered weight heaped, hurled, Resistless as the whirling world, He holds his foeman to the floor For one great moment and no more. {20} So ___ then the sun-blaze! All the night Bursts to a vivid orb of light. There is no shadow; nothing is, But the intensity of bliss. Being is blasted. That exists. OLYMPAS. Ah! MARSYAS. But the mind, that mothers mists, Abides not there. The adept must fall Exhausted. OLYMPAS. There's an end of all? MARSYAS. But not an end of this! Above All life as is the pulse of love, So this transcends all love. OLYMPAS. Ah me! Who may attain? MARSYAS. Rare souls. OLYMPAS. I see Imaged a shadow of this light. MARSYAS. Such is its sacramental might That to recall it radiates Its symbol. The priest elevates The Host, and instant blessing stirs The hushed awaiting worshippers. OLYMPAS. Then how secure the soul's defence? How baffle the besieger, Sense? MARSYAS. See the beleagured city, hurt By hideous engines, sore begirt And gripped by lines of death, well scored With shell, nigh open to the sword! Now comes the leader; courage, run {21} Contagious through the garrison! Repair the trenches! Man the wall! Restore the ruined arsenal! Serve the great guns! The assailants blench; They are driven from the foremost trench. The deadliest batteries belch their hell No more. So day by day fought well, We silence gun by gun. At last The fiercest of the fray is past; The circling hills are ours. The attack Is over, save for the rare crack, Long dropping shots from hidden forts; --- ___ So is it with our thoughts! OLYMPAS. The hostile thoughts, the evil things! They hover on majestic wings, Like vultures waiting for a man To drop from the slave-caravan! MARSYAS. All thoughts are evil. Thought is two: The seer and the seen. Eschew That supreme blasphemy, my son, Remembering that God is One. OLYMPAS. God is a thought! MARSYAS. The "thought" of God Is but a shattered emerod: A plague, an idol, a delusion, Blasphemy, schism, and confusion! OLYMPAS. Banish my one high thought? The night Indeed were starless. MARSYAS. Very right! But that impalpable inane {22} Is the condition of success; Even as earth lies black to gain Spring's green and autumn's fruitfulness. OLYMPAS. I dread this midnight of the soul. MARSYAS. Welcome the herald! OLYMPAS. How control The horror of the mind? The insane Dead melancholy? MARSYAS. Trick is vain. Sheer manhood must support the strife, And the trained Will, the Root of Life, Bear the adept triumphant. OLYMPAS. Else? MARSYAS. The reason, like a chime of bells Ripped by the lightning, cracks. OLYMPAS. And these Are the first sights the magus sees? MARSYAS. The first true sights. Bright images Throng the clear mind at first, a crowd Of Gods, lights, armies, landscapes; loud Reverberations of the Light. But these are dreams, things in the mind, Reveries, idols. Thou shalt find No rest therein. The former three (Lightning, moon, sun) are royally Liminal to the Hall of Truth. Also there be with them, in sooth, Their brethren. There's the vision called The Lion of the Light, a brand Of ruby flame and emerald {23} Waved by the Hermeneutic Hand. There is the Chalice, whence the flood Of God's beatitude of blood Flames. O to sing those starry tunes! O colder than a million moons! O vestal waters! Wine of love Wan as the lyric soul thereof! There is the Wind, a whirling sword, The savage rapture of the air Tossed beyond space and time. My Lord, My Lord, even now I see Thee there In infinite motion! And beyond There is the Disk, the wheel of things; Like a black boundless diamond Whirring with millions of wings! OLYMPAS. Master! MARSYAS. Know also that above These portents hangs no veil of love; But, guarded by unsleeping eyes Of twice seven score severities, The Veil that only rips apart When the spear strikes to Jesus' heart! A mighty Guard of Fire are they With sabres turning every way! Their eyes are millstones greater than The earth; their mouths run seas of blood. Woe be to that accursŠd man Of whom they are the iniquities! Swept in their wrath's avenging flood To black immitigable seas! {24} Woe to the seeker who shall fail To rend that vexful virgin Veil! Fashion thyself by austere craft Into a single azure shaft Loosed from the string of Will; behold The Rainbow! Thou art shot, pure flame, Past the reverberated Name Into the Hall of Death. Therein The Rosy Cross is subtly seen. OLYMPAS. Is that a vision, then? MARSYAS. It is. OLYMPAS. Tell me thereof! MARSYAS. O not of this! Of all the flowers in God's field We name not this. Our lips are sealed In that the Universal Key Lieth within its mystery. But know thou this. These visions give A hint both faint and fugitive Yet haunting, that behind them lurks Some Worker, greater than his works. Yea, it is given to him who girds His loins up, is not fooled by words, Who takes life lightly in his hand To throw away at Will's command, To know that View beyond the Veil. O petty purities and pale, These visions I have spoken of! {25} The infinite Lord of Light and Love Breaks on the soul like dawn. See! See! Great God of Might and Majesty! Beyond sense, beyond sight, a brilliance Burning from His glowing glance! Formless, all the worlds of flame Atoms of that fiery frame! The adept caught up and broken; Slain, before His Name be spoken! In that fire the soul burns up. One drop from that celestial cup Is an abyss, an infinite sea That sucks up immortality! O but the Self is manifest Through all that blaze! Memory stumbles Like a blind man for all the rest. Speech, like a crag of limestone, crumbles, While this one soul of thought is sure Through all confusion to endure, Infinite Truth in one small span: This that is God is Man. OLYMPAS. Master! I tremble and rejoice. MARSYAS. Before His own authentic voice Doubt flees. The chattering choughs of talk Scatter like sparrows from a hawk. OLYMPAS. Thenceforth the adept is certain of The mystic mountain? Light and Love Are Life therein, and they are his? MARSYAS. Even so. And One supreme there is Whom I have known, being He. Withdrawn {26} Within the curtains of the dawn Dwells that concealed. Behold! he is A blush, a breeze, a song, a kiss, A rosy flame like Love, his eyes Blue, the quintessence of all skies, His hair a foam of gossamer Pale gold as jasmine, lovelier Than all the wheat of Paradise. O the dim water-wells his eyes! There is such depth of Love in them That the adept is rapt away, Dies on that mouth, a gleaming gem Of dew caught in the boughs of Day! OLYMPAS. The hearing of it is so sweet I swoon to silence at thy feet. MARSYAS. Rise! Let me tell thee, knowing HIm, The Path grows never wholly dim. Lose Him, and thou indeed wert lost! But He will not lose thee! OLYMPAS. Exhaust The Word! MARSYAS. Had I a million songs, And every song a million words, And every word a million meanings, I could not count the choral throngs Of Beauty's beatific birds, Or gather up the paltry gleanings Of this great harvest of delight! Hast thou not heard the word aright? That world is truly infinite. {27} Even as a cube is to a square Is that to this. OLYMPAS. Royal and rare! Infinite light of burning wheels! MARSYAS. Ay! The imagination reels. Thou must attain before thou know, And when thou knowest ___ Mighty woe That silence grips the willing lips! OLYMPAS. Ever was speech the thought's eclipse. MARSYAS. Ay, not to veil the truth to him Who sought it, groping in the dim Halls of illusion, said the sages In all the realms, in all the ages, "Keep silence." By a word should come Your sight, and we who see are dumb! We have sought a thousand times to teach Our knowledge; we are mocked by speech. So lewdly mocked, that all this word Seems dead, a cloudy crystal blurred, Though it cling closer to life's heart Than the best rhapsodies of art! OLYMPAS. Yet speak! MARSYAS. Ah, could I tell thee of These infinite things of Light and Love! There is the Peacock; in his fan Innumerable plumes of Pan! Oh! every plume hath countless eyes; ___ Crown of created mysteries! --- Each holds a Peacock like the First. OLYMPAS. How can this be? {28} MARSYAS. The mind's accurst. It cannot be. It is. Behold, Battalion on battalion rolled! There is war in Heaven! The soul sings still, Struck by the plectron of the Will; But the mind's dumb; its only cry The shriek of its last agony! OLYMPAS. Surely it struggles. MARSYAS. Bitterly! And, mark! it must be strong to die! The weak and partial reason dips One edge, another springs, as when A melting iceberg reels and tips Under the sun. Be mighty then, A lord of Thought, beyond wit and wonder Balanced ___ then push the whole mind under, Sunk beyond chance of floating, blent Rightly with its own element, Not lifting jagged peaks and bare To the unsympathetic air! This is the second veil; and hence As first we slew the things of sense Upon the altar of their God, So must the Second Period Slay the ideas, to attain To that which is, beyond the brain. OLYMPAS. To that which is? ___ not thought? not sense? MARSYAS. Knowledge is but experience Made conscious of itself. The bee, {29} Past master of geometry, Hath not one word of all of it; For wisdom is not mother-wit! So the adept is called insane For his frank failure to explain. Language creates false thoughts; the true Breed language slowly. Following Experience of a thing we knew Arose the need to name the thing. So, ancients likened a man's mind To the untamed evasive wind. Some fool thinks names are things; and boasts Aloud of spirits and of ghosts. Religion follows on a pun! And we, who know that Holy One Of whom I told thee, seek in vain Figure or word to make it plain. OLYMPAS. Despair of man! MARSYAS. Man is the seed Of the unimaginable flower. By singleness of thought and deed It may bloom now ___ this actual hour! OLYMPAS. The soul made safe, is vision sure To rise therein? MARSYAS. Though calm and pure It seem, maybe some thought hath crept Into his mind to baulk the adept. The expectation of success Suffices to destroy the stress Of the one thought. But then, what odds? {30} "Man's vision goes, dissolves in God's;" Or, "by God's grace the Light is given To the elected heir of heaven." These are but idle theses, dry Dugs of the cow Theology. Business is business. The one fact That we know is: the gods exact A stainless mirror. Cleanse thy soul! Perfect the will's austere control! For the rest, wait! The sky once clear, Dawn needs no prompting to appear! OLYMPAS. Enough! it shall be done. MARSYAS. Beware! Easily trips the big word "dare." Each man's an OEdipus, that thinks He hath the four powers of the Sphinx, Will, Courage, Knowledge, Silence. Son, Even the adepts scarce win to one! Thy Thoughts ___ they fall like rotten fruits. But to destroy the power that makes These thoughts ___ thy Self? A man it takes To tear his soul up by the roots! This is the mandrake fable, boy! OLYMPAS. You told me that the Path was joy. MARSYAS. A lie to lure thee! OLYMPAS. Master! MARSYAS. Pain And joy are twin toys of the brain. Even early visions pass beyond! OLYMPAS. Not all the crabbed runes I have conned {31} Told me so plain a truth. I see, Inscrutable Simplicity! Crushed like a blind-worm by the heel Of all I am, perceive, and feel, My truth was but the partial pang That chanced to strike me as I sang. MARSYAS. In the beginning, violence Marks the extinction of the sense. Anguish and rapture rack the soul. These are disruptions of control. Self-poised, a brooding hawk, there hangs In the still air the adept. The bull On the firm earth goes not so smooth! So the first fine ecstatic pangs Pass; balance comes. OLYMPAS. How wonderful Are these tall avenues of truth! MARSYAS. So the first flash of light and terror Is seen as shadow, known as error. Next, light comes as light; as it grows The sense of peace still steadier glows; And the fierce lust, that linked the soul To its God, attains a chaste control. Intimate, an atomic bliss, Is the last phrasing of that kiss. Not ecstasy, but peace, pure peace! Invisible the dew sublimes From the great mother, subtly climbs And loves the leaves! Yea, in the end, {32} Vision all vision must transcend. These glories are mere scaffolding To the Closed Palace of the King. OLYMPAS. Yet, saidst thou, ere the new flower shoots The soul is torn up by the roots. MARSYAS. Now come we to the intimate things Known to how few! Man's being clings First to the outer. Free from these The inner sheathings, and he sees Those sheathings as external. Strip One after one each lovely lip From the full rose-but! Ever new Leaps the next petal to the view. What binds them by Desire? Disease Most dire of direful Destiny's! OLYMPAS. I have abandoned all to tread The brilliant pathway overhead! MARSYAS. Easy to say. To abandon all, All must be first loved and possessed. Nor thou nor I have burst the thrall. All ___ as I offered half in jest, Sceptic ___ was torn away from me. Not without pain! THEY slew my child, Dragged my wife down to infamy Loathlier than death, drove to the wild My tortured body, stripped me of Wealth, health, youth, beauty, ardour, love. Thou has abandoned all? Then try A speck of dust within the eye! OLYMPAS. But that is different! {33} MARSYAS. Life is one. Magic is life. The physical (Men name it) is a house of call For the adept, heir of the sun! Bombard the house! it groans and gapes. The adept runs forth, and so escapes That ruin! OLYMPAS. Smoothly parallel The ruin of the mind as well? MARSYAS. Ay! Hear the Ordeal of the Veil, The Second Veil! ... O spare me this Magical memory! I pale To show the Veil of the Abyss. Nay, let confession be complete! OLYMPAS. Master, I bend me at thy feet --- Why do they sweat with blood and dew? MARSYAS. Blind horror catches at my breath. The path of the abyss runs through Things darker, dismaller than death! Courage and will! What boots their force? The mind rears like a frightened horse. There is no memory possible Of that unfathomable hell. Even the shadows that arise Are things to dreadful to recount! There's no such doom in Destiny's Harvest of horror. The white fount Of speech is stifled at its source. Know, the sane spirit keeps its course By this, that everything it thinks Hath causal or contingent links. {34} Destroy them, and destroy the mind! O bestial, bottomless, and blind Black pit of all insanity! The adept must make his way to thee! This is the end of all our pain, The dissolution of the brain! For lo! in this no mortar sticks; Down come the house ___ a hail of bricks! The sense of all I hear is drowned; Tap, tap, isolated sound, Patters, clatters, batters, chatters, Tap, tap, tap, and nothing matters! Senseless hallucinations roll Across the curtain of the soul. Each ripple on the river seems The madness of a maniac's dreams! So in the self no memory-chain Or causal wisp to bind the straws! The Self disrupted! Blank, insane, Both of existence and of laws, The Ego and the Universe Fall to one black chaotic curse. OLYMPAS. So ends philosophy's inquiry: "Summa scientia nihil scire." MARSYAS. Ay, but that reasoned thesis lacks The impact of reality. This vision is a battle axe Splitting the skull. O pardon me! But my soul faints, my stomach sinks. Let me pass on! OLYMPAS. My being drinks {35} The nectar-poison of the Sphinx. This is a bitter medicine! MARSYAS. Black snare that I was taken in! How one may pass I hardly know. Maybe time never blots the track. Black, black, intolerably black! Go, spectre of the ages, go! Suffice it that I passed beyond. I found the secret of the bond Of thought to thought through countless years Through many lives, in many spheres, Brought to a point the dark design Of this existence that is mine. I knew my secret. "All I was" I brought into the burning-glass, And all its focussed light and heat Charred "all I am." The rune's complete When "all I shall be" flashes by Like a shadow on the sky. Then I dropped my reasoning. Vacant and accursed thing! By my Will I swept away The web of metaphysic, smiled At the blind labyrinth, where the grey Old snake of madness wove his wild Curse! As I trod the trackless way Through sunless gorges of Cathay, I became a little child. By nameless rivers, swirling through {36} Chasms, a fantastic blue, Month by month, on barren hills, In burning heat, in bitter chills, Tropic forest, Tartar snow, Smaragdine archipelago, See me ___ led by some wise hand That I did not understand. Morn and noon and eve and night I, the forlorn eremite, Called on Him with mild devotion, As the dew-drop woos the ocean. In my wanderings I came To an ancient park aflame With fairies' feet. Still wrapped in love I was caught up, beyond, above The tides of being. The great sight Of the intolerable light Of the whole universe that wove The labyrinth of life and love Blazed in me. Then some giant will, Mine or another's thrust a thrill Through the great vision. All the light Went out in an immortal night, The world annihilated by The opening of the Master's Eye. How can I tell it? OLYMPAS. Master, master! A sense of some divine disaster Abases me. {37} MARSYAS. Indeed, the shrine Is desolate of the divine! But all the illusion gone, behold The one that is! OLYMPAS. Royally rolled, I hear strange music in the air! MARSYAS. It is the angelic choir, aware Of the great Ordeal dared and done By one more Brother of the Sun! OLYMPAS. Master, the shriek of a great bird Blends with the torrent of the thunder. MARSYAS. It is the echo of the word That tore the universe asunder. OLYMPAS. Master, thy stature spans the sky. MARSYAS. Verily; but it is not I. The adept dissolves ___ pale phantom form Blown from the black mouth of the storm. It is another that arises! OLYMPAS. Yet in thee, through thee! MARSYAS. I am not. OLYMPAS. For me thou art. MARSYAS. So that suffices To seal thy will? To cast thy lot Into the lap of God? Then, well! OLYMPAS. Ay, there is no more potent spell. Through life, through death, by land and sea Most surely will I follow thee. MARSYAS. Follow thyself, not me. Thou hast An Holy Guardian Angel, bound to lead thee from thy bitter waste {38} To the inscrutable profound That is His covenanted ground. OLYMPAS. Thou who hast known these master-keys Of all creation's mysteries, Tell me, what followed the great gust Of God that blew his world to dust? MARSYAS. I, even I the man, became As a great sword of flashing flame. My life, informed with holiness, Conscious of its own loveliness, Like a well that overflows At the limit of the snows, Sent its crystal stream to gladden The hearts of me, their lives to madden With the intoxicating bliss (Wine mixed with myrrh and ambergris!) Of this bitter-sweet perfume, This gorse's blaze of prickly bloom That is the Wisdom of the Way. Then springs the statue from the clay, And all God's doubted fatherhood Is seen to be supremely good. Live within the sane sweet sun! Leave the shadow-world alone! OLYMPAS. There is a crown for every one; For every one there is a throne! MARSYAS. That crown is Silence. Sealed and sure! That throne is Knowledge perfect pure. Below that throne adoring stand {39} Virtues in a blissful band; Mercy, majesty and power, Beauty and harmony and strength, Triumph and splendour, starry shower Of flames that flake their lily length, A necklet of pure light, far-flung Down to the Base, from which is hung A pearl, the Universe, whose sight Is one globed jewel of delight. Fallen no more! A bowered bride Blushing to be satisfied! OLYMPAS. All this, of once the Eye unclose? MARSYAS. The golden cross, the ruby rose Are gone, when flaming from afar The Hawk's eye blinds the Silver Star. O brothers of the Star, caressed By its cool flames from brow to breast, Is there some rapture yet to excite This prone and pallid neophyte? OLYMPAS. O but there is no need of this! I burn toward the abyss of Bliss. I call the Four Powers of the Name; Earth, wind and cloud, sea, smoke and flame To witness: by this triune Star I swear to break the twi-forked bar. But how to attain? Flexes and leans The strongest will that lacks the means. MARSYAS. There are seven keys to the great gate, Being eight in one and one in eight. {40} First, let the body of thee be still, Bound by the cerements of will, Corpse-rigid; thus thou mayst abort The fidget-babes that tense the thought. Next, let the breath-rhythm be low, Easy, regular, and slow; So that thy being be in tune With the great sea's Pacific swoon. Third, let thy life be pure and calm Swayed softly as a windless palm. Fourth, let the will-to-live be bound To the one love of the Profound. Fifth, let the thought, divinely free From sense, observe its entity. Watch every thought that springs; enhance Hour after hour thy vigilance! Intense and keen, turned inward, miss No atom of analysis! Sixth, on one thought securely pinned Still every whisper of the wind! So like a flame straight and unstirred Burn up thy being in one word! Next, still that ecstasy, prolong Thy meditation steep and strong, Slaying even God, should He distract Thy attention from the chosen act! Last, all these things in one o'erpowered, Time that the midnight blossom flowered! The oneness is. Yet even in this, My son, thou shalt not do amiss {41} If thou restrain the expression, shoot Thy glance to rapture's darkling root, Discarding name, form, sight, and stress Even of this high consciousness; Pierce to the heart! I leave thee here: Thou art the Master. I revere Thy radiance that rolls afar, O Brother of the Silver Star! OLYMPAS. Ah, but no ease may lap my limbs. Giants and sorcerers oppose; Ogres and dragons are my foes! Leviathan against me swims, And lions roar, and Boreas blows! No Zephyrs woo, no happy hymns Paean the Pilgrim of the Rose! MARSYAS. I teach the royal road of light. Be thou, devoutly eremite, Free of thy fate. Choose tenderly A place for thine Academy. Let there be an holy wood Of embowered solitude By the still, the rainless river, Underneath the tangled roots Of majestic trees that quiver In the quiet airs; where shoots Of the kindly grass are green Moss and ferns asleep between, Lilies in the water lapped, Sunbeams in the branches trapped ___ Windless and eternal even! Silenced all the birds of heaven {42} By the low insistent call Of the constant waterfall. There, to such a setting be Its carven gem of deity, A central flawless fire, enthralled Like Truth within an emerald! Thou shalt have a birchen bark On the river in the dark; And at the midnight thou shalt go to the mid-stream's smoothest flow, And strike upon a golden bell The spirit's call; then say the spell: "Angel, mine angel, draw thee nigh!" Making the Sign of Magistry With wand of lapis lazuli. Then, it may be, through the blind dumb Night thou shalt see thine angel come, Hear the faint whisper of his wings, Behold the starry breast begemmed With the twelve stones of the twelve kings! His forehead shall be diademed With the faint light of stars, wherein The Eye gleams dominant and keen. Thereat thou swoonest; and thy love Shall catch the subtle voice thereof. He shall inform his happy lover: My foolish prating shall be over! OLYMPAS. O now I burn with holy haste. This doctrine hath so sweet a taste That all the other wine is sour. MARSYAS. Son, there's a bee for every flower. {43} Lie open, a chameleon cup, And let Him suck thine honey up! OLYMPAS. There is one doubt. When souls attain Such an unimagined gain Shall not others mark them, wise Beyond mere mortal destinies? MARSYAS. Such are not the perfect saints. While the imagination faints Before their truth, they veil it close As amid the utmost snows The tallest peaks most straitly hide With clouds their holy heads. Divide The planes! Be ever as you can A simple honest gentleman! Body and manners be at ease, Not bloat with blazoned sanctities! Who fights as fights the soldier-saint? And see the artist-adept paint! Weak are those souls that fear the stress Of earth upon their holiness! They fast, they eat fantastic food, They prate of beans and brotherhood, Wear sandals, and long hair, and spats, And think that makes them Arahats! How shall man still his spirit-storm? Rational Dress and Food Reform! OLYMPAS. I know such saints. MARSYAS. An easy vice: So wondrous well they advertise! O their mean souls are satisfied {44} With wind of spiritual pride. They're all negation. "Do not eat; What poison to the soul is meat! Drink not; smoke not; deny the will! Wine and tobacco make us ill." Magic is life; the Will to Live Is one supreme Affirmative. These things that flinch from Life are worth No more to Heaven than to Earth. Affirm the everlasting Yes! OLYMPAS. Those saints at least score one success: Perfection of their priggishness! MARSYAS. Enough. The soul is subtlier fed With meditation's wine and bread. Forget their failings and our own; Fix all our thoughts on Love alone! Ah, boy, all crowns and thrones above Is the sanctity of love. In His warm and secret shrine Is a cup of perfect wine, Whereof one drop is medicine Against all ills that hurt the soul. A flaming daughter of the Jinn Brought to me once a wingŠd scroll, Wherein I read the spell that brings The knowledge of that King of Kings. Angel, I invoke thee now! Bend on me the starry brow! Spread the eagle wings above {45} The pavilion of our love! .... Rise from your starry sapphire seats! See, where through the quickening skies The oriflamme of beauty beats Heralding loyal legionaries, Whose flame of golden javelins Fences those peerless paladins. There are the burning lamps of them, Splendid star-clusters to begem The trailing torrents of those blue Bright wings that bear mine angel through! O Thou art like an Hawk of Gold, Miraculously manifold, For all the sky's aflame to be A mirror magical of Thee! The stars seem comets, rushing down To gem thy robes, bedew thy crown. Like the moon-plumes of a strange bird By a great wind sublimely stirred, Thou drawest the light of all the skies Into thy wake. The heaven dies In bubbling froth of light, that foams About thine ardour. All the domes Of all the heavens close above thee As thou art known of me who love thee. Excellent kiss, thou fastenest on This soul of mine, that it is gone, Gone from all life, and rapt away Into the infinite starry spray Of thine own AEon ... Alas for me! {46} I faint. Thy mystic majesty Absorbs this spark. OLYMPAS. All hail! all hail! White splendour through the viewless veil! I am drawn with thee to rapture. OLYMPAS. Stay! I bear a message. Heaven hath sent The knowledge of a new sweet way Into the Secret Element. OLYMPAS. Master, while yet the glory clings Declare this mystery magical! MARSYAS. I am yet borne on those blue wings Into the Essence of the All. Now, now I stand on earth again, Though, blazing through each nerve and vein, The light yet holds its choral course, Filling my frame with fiery force Like God's. Now hear the Apocalypse New-fledged on these reluctant lips! OLYMPAS. I tremble like an aspen, quiver Like light upon a rainy river! MARSYAS. Do what thou wilt! is the sole word Of law that my attainment heard. Arise, and lay thine hand on God! Arise, and set a period Unto Restriction! That is sin: To hold thine holy spirit in! O thou that chafest at thy bars, Invoke Nuit beneath her stars With a pure heart (Her incense burned {47} Of gums and woods, in gold inurned), And let the serpent flame therein A little, and thy soul shall win To lie within her bosom. Lo! Thou wouldst give all ___ and she cries: No! Take all, and take me! Gather spice And virgins and great pearls of price! Worship me in a single robe, Crowned richly! Girdle of the globe, I love thee! Pale and purple, veiled, Voluptuous, swan silver-sailed, I love thee. I am drunkness Of the inmost sense; my soul's caress Is toward thee! Let my priestess stand Bare and rejoicing, softly fanned By smooth-lipped acolytes, upon Mine iridescent altar-stone, And in her love-chaunt swooningly Say evermore: To me! To me! I am the azure-lidded daughter Of sunset; the all-girdling water; The naked brilliance of the sky In the voluptuous night am I! With song, with jewel, with perfume, Wake all my rose's blush and bloom! Drink to me! Love me! I love thee, My love, my lord ___ to me! to me! OLYMPAS. There is no harshness in the breath Of this ___ is life surpassed, and death? MARSYAS. There is the Snake that gives delight {48} And Knowledge, stirs the heart aright With drunkenness. Strange drugs are thine, Hadit, and draughts of wizard wine! These do no hurt. Thine hermits dwell Not in the cold secretive cell, But under purple canopies With mighty-breasted mistresses Magnificent as lionesses ___ Tender and terrible caresses! Fire lives, and light, in eager eyes; And massed huge hair about them lies. They lead their hosts to victory: In every joy they are kings; then see That secret serpent coiled to spring And win the world! O priest and king, Let there be feasting, foining, fighting, A revel of lusting, singing, smiting! Work; be the bed of work! Hold! Hold! the stars' kiss is as molten gold. Harden! Hold thyself up! now die --- Ah! Ah! Exceed! Exceed! OLYMPAS. And I? MARSYAS. My stature shall surpass the stars: He hath said it! Men shall worship me In hidden woods, on barren scaurs, Henceforth to all eternity. OLYMPAS. Hail! I adore thee! Let us feast. MARSYAS. I am the consecrated Beast. I build the Abominable House. The Scarlet Woman is my Spouse ___ {49} OLYMPAS. What is this word? MARSYAS. Thou canst not know Till thou hast passed the Fourth Ordeal. OLYMPAS. I worship thee. The moon-rays flow Masterfully rich and real From thy red mouth, and burst, young suns Chanting before the Holy Ones Thine Eight Mysterious Orisons! MARSYAS. The last spell! The availing word! The two completed by the third! The Lord of War, of Vengeance That slayeth with a single glance! This light is in me of my Lord. His Name is this far-whirling sword. I push His order. Keen and swift My Hawk's eye flames; these arms uplift The Banner of Silence and of Strength ___ Hail! Hail! thou art here, my Lord, at length! Lo, the Hawk-Headed Lord am I: My nemyss shrouds the night-blue sky. Hail! ye twin warriors that guard The pillars of the world! Your time Is nigh at hand. The snake that marred Heaven with his inexhaustible slime Is slain; I bear the Wand of Power, The Wand that waxes and that wanes; I crush the Universe this hour In my left hand; and naught remains! Ho! for the splendour in my name Hidden and glorious, a flame {50} Secretly shooting from the sun. Aum! Ha! ___ my destiny is done. The Word is spoken and concealed. OLYMPAS. I am stunned. What wonder was revealed? MARSYAS. The rite is secret. OLYMPAS. Profits it? MARSYAS. Only to wisdom and to wit. OLYMPAS. The other did no less. MARSYAS. Then prove Both by the master-key of Love. The lock turns stiffly? Shalt thou shirk To use the sacred oil of work? Not from the valley shalt thou test The eggs that line the eagle's nest! Climb, with thy life at stake, the ice, The sheer wall of the precipice! Master the cornice, gain the breach, And learn what next the ridge can teach! Yet ___ not the ridge itself may speak The secret of the final peak. OLYMPAS. All ridges join at last. MARSYAS. Admitted, O thou astute and subtle-witted! Yet one ___ loose, jaggŠd, clad in mist! Another ___ firm, smooth, loved and kissed By the soft sun! Our order hath This secret of the solar path, Even as our Lord the Beast hath won The mystic Number of the Sun. OLYMPAS. These secrets are too high for me. {51} MARSYAS. Nay, little brother! Come and see! Neither by faith nor fear nor awe Approach the doctrine of the Law! Truth, Courage, Love, shall win the bout, And those three others be cast out. OLYMPAS. Lead me, Master, by the hand Gently to this gracious land! Let me drink the doctrine in, An all-healing medicine! Let me rise, correct and firm, Steady striding to the term, Master of my fate, to rise To imperial destinies; With the sun's ensanguine dart Spear-bright in my blazing heart, And my being's basil-plant Bright and hard as adamant! MARSYAS. Yonder, faintly luminous, The yellow desert waits for us. Lithe and eager, hand in hand, We travel to the lonely land. There, beneath the stars, the smoke Of our incense shall invoke The Queen of Space; and subtly She Shall bend from Her infinity Like a lambent flame of blue, Touching us, and piercing through All the sense-webs that we are As the aethyr penetrates a star! Her hands caressing the black earth, {52} Her sweet lithe body arched for love, Her feet a Zephyr to the flowers, She calls my name ___ she gives the sign That she is mine, supremely mine, And clinging to the infinite girth My soul gets perfect joy thereof Beyond the abysses and the hours; So that ___ I kiss her lovely brows; She bathes my body in perfume Of sweat .... O thou my secret spouse, Continuous One of Heaven! illume My soul with this arcane delight, Volumptuous Daughter of the Night! Eat me up wholly with the glance Of thy luxurious brilliance! OLYMPAS. The desert calls. MARSYAS. Then let us go! Or seek the sacramental snow, Where like a high-priest I may stand With acolytes on every hand, The lesser peaks ___ my will withdrawn To invoke the dayspring from the dawn, Changing that rosy smoke of light To a pure crystalline white; Though the mist of mind, as draws A dancer round her limbs the gauze, Clothe Light, and show the virgin Sun A lemon-pale medallion! Thence leap we leashless to the goal, Stainless star-rapture of the soul. {53} So the altar-fires fade As the Godhead is displayed. Nay, we stir not. Everywhere Is our temple right appointed. All the earth is faery fair For us. Am I not anointed? The Sigil burns upon the brow At the adjuration ___ here and now. OLYMPAS. The air is laden with perfumes. MARSYAS. Behold! It beams ___ it burns ___ it blooms. * * * * * OLYMPAS. Master, how subtly hast thou drawn The daylight from the Golden Dawn, Bidden the Cavernous Mount unfold Its Ruby Rose, its Cross of Gold; Until I saw, flashed from afar, The Hawk's eye in the Silver Star! MARSYAS. Peace to all beings. Peace to thee, Co-heir of mine eternity! Peace to the greatest and the least, To nebula and nenuphar! Light in abundance be increased On them that dream that shadows are! OLYMPAS. Blessing and worship to The Beast, The prophet of the lovely Star! {54} THE HERB DANGEROUS PART III THE POEM OF HASHISH THE POEM OF HASHISH CHAPTER I THE LONGING FOR INFINITY THOSE who know how to observe themselves, and who preserve the memory of their impressions, those who, like Hoffmann, have known how to construct their spiritual barometer, have sometimes had to note in the observatory of their mind fine seasons, happy days, delicious minutes. There are days when man awakes with a young and vigorous genius. Though his eyelids be scarcely released from the slumber which sealed them, the exterior world shows itself to him with a powerful relief, a clearness of contour, and a richness of colour which are admirable. The moral world opens out its vast perspective, full of new clarities. A man gratified by this happiness, unfortunately rare and transient, feels himself at once more an artist and more a just man; to say all in a word, a nobler being. But the most singular thing in this exceptional condition of the spirit and of the senses ___ which I may without exaggeration call heavenly, if I compare it with the heavy shadows of common and daily existence ___ is that it has not been created by any visible or easily definable cause. It is the result of a good hygiene and of a wise regimen? Such is the first explanation which {57} suggests itself; but we are obliged to recognise that often this marvel, this prodigy, so to say, produces itself as if it were the effect of a superior and invisible power, of a power exterior to man, after a period of the abuse of his physical faculties. Shall we say that it is the reward of assiduous prayer and spiritual ardour? It is certain that a constant elevation of the desire, a tension of the spiritual forces in a heavenly direction, would be the most proper regimen for creating this moral health, so brilliant and so glorious. But what absurd law causes it to manifest itself (as it sometimes does) after shameful orgies of the imagination; after a sophistical abuse of reason, which is, to its straight forward and rational use, that which the tricks of dislocation which some acrobats have taught themselves to perform are to sane gymnastics? For this reason I prefer to consider this abnormal condition of the spirit as a true "grace;" as a magic mirror wherein man is invited to see himself at his best; that is to say, as that which he should be, and might be; a kind of angelic excitement; a rehabilitation of the most flattering type. A certain Spiritualist School, largely represented in England and America, even considers supernatural phenomena, such as the apparition of phantoms, ghosts, &c., as manifestations of the Divine Will, ever anxious to awaken in the spirit of man the memory of invisible truths. Besides this charming and singular state, where all the forces are balanced; where the imagination, though enormously powerful, does not drag after it into perilous adventures the moral sense; when an exquisite sensibility is no longer tortured by sick nerves, those councillors-in- ordinary of crime or despair: this marvellous {58} State, I say, has no prodromal symptoms. It is as unexpected as a ghost. It is a species of obsession, but of intermittent obsession; from which we should be able to draw, if we were but wise, the certainty of a nobler existence, and the hope of attaining to it by the daily exercise of our will. This sharpness of thought, this enthusiasm of the senses and of the spirit, must in every age have appeared to man as the chiefest of blessings; and for this reason, considering nothing but the immediate pleasure he has, without worrying himself as to whether he were violating the laws of his constitution, he has sought, in physical science, in pharmacy, in the grossest liquors, in the subtlest perfumes, in every climate and in every age, the means of fleeing, were it but for some hours only, his habitaculum of mire, and, as the author of "Lazare" says, "to carry Paradise at the first assault." Alas! the vices of man, full of horror as one must suppose them, contain the proof, even though it were nothing but their infinite expansion, of his hunger for the Infinite; only, it is a taste which often loses its way. One might take a proverbial metaphor, "All roads lead to Rome," and apply it to the moral world: all roads lead to reward or punishment; two forms of eternity. The mind of man is glutted with passion: he has, if I may use another familiar phrase, passion to burn. But this unhappy soul, whose natural depravity is equal to its sudden aptitude, paradoxical enough, for charity and the most arduous virtues, is full of paradoxes which allow him to turn to other purposes the overflow of this overmastering passion. He never imagines that he is selling himself wholesale: he forgets, in his infatuation, that he is matched against a player more cunning and more strong than {59} he; and that the Spirit of Evil, though one give him but a hair, will not delay to carry off the whole head. This visible lord of visible nature ___ I speak of man ___ has, then, wished to create Paradise by chemistry, by fermented drinks; like a maniac who should replace solid furniture and real gardens by decorations painted on canvas and mounted on frames. It is in this degradation of the sense of the Infinite that lies, according to me, the reason of all guilty excesses; from the solitary and concentrated drunkenness of the man of letters, who, obliged to seek in opium and anodyne for a physical suffering, and having thus discovered a well of morbid pleasure, has made of it, little by little, his sole diet, and as it were the sum of his spiritual life; down to the most disgusting sot of the suburbs, who, his head full of flame and of glory, rolls ridiculously in the muck of the roads. Among the drugs most efficient in creating what I call the artificial ideal, leaving on one side liquors, which rapidly exite gross frenzy and lay flat all spiritual force, and the perfumes, whose excessive use, while rendering more subtle man's imagination, wear out gradually his physical forces; the two most energetic substances, the most convenient and the most handy, are hashish and opium. The analysis of the mysterious effect and the diseased pleasures which these drugs beget, of the inevitable chastisement which results from their prolonged use, and finally the immorality necessarily employed in this pursuit of a false ideal, consititutes the subject of this study. The subject of opium has been treated already, and in a manner at once so startling, so scientific, and so poetic that I shall not dare to add a word to it. I will therefore content {60} myself in another study, with giving an analysis of this incomparable book, which has never been fully translated into French. The author, and illustrious man of a powerful and exquisite imagination, to-day retired and silent, has dared with tragic candour to write down the delights and the tortures which he once found in opium, and the most dramatic portion of his book is that where he speaks of the superhuman efforts of will which he found it necessary to bring into action in order to escape from the damnation which he had imprudently incurred. To-day I shall only speak of hashish, and I shall speak of it after numerous investigations and minute information; extracts from notes or confidences of intelligent men who had long been addicted to it; only, I shall combine these varied documents into a sort of monograph, choosing a particular soul, and one easy to explain and to define, as a type suitable to experiences of this nature. {61} CHAPTER II WHAT IS HASHISH? THE stories of Marco Polo, which have been so unjustly laughed at, as in the case of some other old travellers, have been verified by men of science, and deserve or belief. I shall not repeat his story of how, after having intoxicated them with hashish (whence the word "Assassin") the old Man of the Mountains shut up in a garden filled with delights those of his youngest disciples to whom he wished to give an idea of Paradise as an earnest of the reward, so to speak, of a passive and unreflecting obedience. The reader may consult, concerning the secret Society of Hashishins, the work of Von Hammer- Purgstall, and the note of M. Sylvestre de Sacy contained in vol. 16 of "M‚mories de l'Acad‚mie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres"; and, with regard to the etymology of the word "assassin," his letter to the editor of the "Moniteur" in No. 359 of the year 1809. Herodotus tells us that the Syrians used to gather grains of hemp and throw red-hot stones upon them; so that it was like a vapour-bath, more perfumed than that of any Grecian stove; and the pleasure of it was so acute that it drew cries of joy from them. Hashish, in effect, comes to us from the East. The exciting properties of hemp were well known in ancient Egypt, and the use of it is very widely spread under different names in {62} India, Algeria, and Arabia Felix; but we have around us, under our eyes, curious examples of the intoxication caused by vegetable emanations. Without speaking of the children who, having played and rolled themselves in heaps of cut lucern, often experience singular attacks of vertigo, it is well known that during the hemp harvest both male and female workers undergo similar effects. One would say that from the harvest rises a miasma which troubles their brains despitefully. The head of the reaper is full of whirlwinds, sometimes laden with reveries; at certain moments the limbs grow weak and refuse their office. We have heard tell of crises of somnambulism as being frequent among the Russian peasants, whose cause, they say, must be attributed to the use of hemp-seed oil in the preparation of food. Who does not know the extravagant behaviour of hens which have eaten grains of hemp-seed, and the wild enthusiasm of the horses which the peasants, at weddings and on the feasts of their patron saints, prepare for a steeplechase by a ration of hemp-seed, sometimes sprinkled with wine? Nevertheless, French hemp is unsuitable for preparing hashish, or at least, as repeated experiments have shown, unfitted to give a drug which is equal in power to hashish. Hashish, or Indian hemp ("Cannabis indica"), is a plant of the family of "Urticacea," resembling in every respect the hemp of our latitudes, except that it does not attain the same height. It possesses very extraordinary intoxicating properties, which for some years past have attracted in France the attention of men of science and of the world. It is more or less highly esteemed according to its different sources: that of Bengal is the most prized by Europeans; that, however, of Egypt, of Constantinople, of Persia, and {63} of Algeria enjoys the same properties, but in an inferior degree. ..LAYOUT 4 Hashish (or grass; that is to say, "the" grass "par excellence," as if the Arabs had wished to define in a single word the "grass" source of all material pleasures) has different names, according to its composition and the method of preparation which it has undergone in the country where it has been gathered: In India, "bhang;" in Africa, "teriaki;" in Algeria and in Arabia Felix, "madjound," "&c." It makes considerable difference at what season of the year it is gathered. It possesses its greatest energy when it is in flower. The flowering tops are in consequence the only parts employed in the different preparations of which we are about to speak. The "extrait gras" of hashish, as the Arabs prepare it, is obtained by boiling the tops of the fresh plant in but ter, with a little water. It is strained, after complete evaporation of all humidity, and one thus obtains a preparation which has the appearance of a pomade, in colour greenish yellow, and which possesses a disagreeable odour of hashish and of rancid butter. Under this form it is employed in small pills of two to four grammes in weight, but on account of its objectionable smell, which increases with age, the Arabs conceal the "extrait gras" in sweetmeats. The most commonly employed of these sweetmeats, "dawamesk," is a mixture of "extrait gras," sugar, and various other aromatic substances, such as vanilla, cinnamon, pistachio, almond, musk. Sometimes one even adds a little cantharides, with an object which has nothing in common with the ordinary results of hashish. Under this new form hashish has no disagreeable qualities, and one can take it in a {64} dose of fifteen, twenty, and thirty grammes, either enveloped in a leaf of "pain … chanter" or in a cup of coffee. The experiments made by Messrs. Smith, Gastinel, and Decourtive were directed towards the discovery of the active principles of hashish. Despite their efforts, its chemical combination is still little known, but one usually attributes its properties to a resinous matter which is found there in the proportion of about 10 per cent. To obtain this resin the dried plant is reduced to a course powder, which is then washed several times with alcohol; this is afterwards partially distilled and evaporated until it reaches the consistency of an extract; this extract is treated with water, which dissolves the gummy foreign matter, and the resin then remains in a pure condition.  This product is soft, of a dark green colour, and possesses to a high degree the characteristic smell of hashish. Five, ten, fifteen centigrammes are suffi cient to produce surprising results. But the haschischine, which may be admin istered under the form of chocolate pastilles or small pills mixed with ginger, has, like the "dawamesk" and the "extrait gras," effects more or less vigorous, and of an extremely varied nature, according to the individual temperament and nervous susceptibility of the hashish-eater; and, more than that, the result varies in the same individual. Sometimes he will experience an immoderate and irresistible gaiety, sometimes a sense of well-being and of abundance of life, sometimes a slumber doubtful and thronged with dreams. There are, however, some phenomena which occur regularly enough; above all, in the case of persons of a regular temperament and education; there is a kind of unity in its variety which {65} will allow me to edit, without too much trouble, this monograph on hashish- drunkenness of which I spoke before. At Constantinople, in Algeria, and even in France, some people smoke hashish mixed with tobacco, but then the phenomena in question only occur under a form much moderated, and, so to say, lazy. I have heard it said that recently, by means of distillation, an essential oil has been drawn from hashish which appears to possess a power much more active than all the preparations hitherto known, but it has not been sufficiently studied for me to speak with certainty of its results. Is it not superfluous to add that tea, coffee, and alcoholic drinks are powerful adjuvants which accelerate more or less the outbreak of this mysterious intoxication? {66} CHAPTER III THE PLAYGROUND OF THE SERAPHIM WHAT does one experience? What does one see? Marvellous things, is it not so? Wonderful sights? Is it very beautiful? and very terrible? and very dangerous? Such are the usual questions which, with a curiosity mingled with fear, those ignorant of hashish address to its adepts. It is, as it were, the childish impatience to know, resembling that of those people who have never quitted their firesides when they meet a man who returns from distant and unknown countries. They imagine hashish-drunkenness to themselves as a prodigious country, a vast theatre of sleight-of-hand and of juggling, where all is miraculous, all unforeseen. ___ That is a prejudice, a complete mistake. And since for the ordinary run of readers and of questioners the word "hashish" connotes the idea of a strange and topsy-turvy world, the expectation of prodigious dreams (it would be better to say hallucinations, which are, by the way, less frequent than people suppose), I will at once remark upon the important difference which separates the effects of hashish from the phenomena of dream. In dream, that adventurous voyage which we undertake every night, there is something positively miraculous. It is a miracle whose punctual occurrence has blunted its mystery. The dreams of man are of two classes. Some, full of his ordinary {67} life, of his preoccupations, of his desires, of his vices, combine themselves in a manner more or less bizarre with the objects which he has met in his day's work, which have carelessly fixed themselves upon the vast canvas of his memory. That is the natural dream; it is the man himself. But the other kind of dream, the dream absurd and unforeseen, without meaning or connection with the character, the life, and the passions of the sleeper: this dream, which I shall call hieroglyphic, evidently represents the supernatural side of life, and it is exactly because it is absurd that the ancients believed it to be divine. As it is inexplicable by natural causes, they attributed to it a cause external to man, and even to-day, leaving out of account oneiromancers and the fooleries of a philosophical school which sees in dreams of this type sometimes a reproach, sometimes a warning; in short, a symbolic and moral picture begotten in the spirit itself of the sleeper. It is a dictionary which one must study; a language of which sages may obtain the key. In the intoxication of hashish there is nothing like this. We shall not go outside the class of natural dream. The drunkenness, throughout its duration, it is true, will be nothing but an immense dream, thanks to the intensity of its colours and the rapidity of its conceptions. But it will always keep the idiosyncrasy of the individual. The man has desired to dream; the dream will govern the man. But this dream will be truly the son of its father. The idle man has taxed his ingenuity to introduce artificially the supernatural into his life and into his thought; but, after all, and despite the accidental energy of his experiences, he is nothing but the same man magnified, the same number raised to a very high power. He {68} is brought into subjection, but, unhappily for him, it is not by himself; that is to say, by the part of himself which is already dominant. "He would be angel; he becomes a beast." Momentarily very powerful, if, indeed, one can give the name of power to what is merely excessive sensibility without the control which might moderate or make use of it. Let it be well understood then, by worldly and ignorant folk, curious of acquaintance with exceptional joys, that they will find in hashish nothing miraculous, absolutely nothing but the natural in a superabundant degree. The brain and the organism upon which hashish operates will only give their ordinary and individual phenomena, magnified, it is true, both in quantity and quality, but always faithful to their origin. Man cannot escape the fatality of his mortal and physical temperament. Hashish will be, indeed, for the impressions and familiar thoughts of the man, a mirror which magnifies, yet no more than a mirror. Here is the drug before your eyes: a little green sweet-meat, about as big as a nut, with a strange smell; so strange that it arouses a certain revulsion, and inclinations to nausea ___ as, indeed, any fine and even agreeable scent, exalted to its maximum strength and (so to say) density, would do. Allow me to remark in passing that this proposition can be inverted, and that the most disgusting and revolting perfume would become perhaps a pleasure to inhale if it were reduced to its minimum quantity and intensity. There! there is happiness; heaven in a teaspoon; happiness, with all its intoxication, all its folly, all its childishness. You can swallow it without fear; it is not fatal; it will in nowise injure your physical organs. Perhaps (later on) too {69} frequent an employment of the sorcery will diminish the strength of your will; perhaps you will be less a man than you are today; but retribution is so far off, and the nature of the eventual disaster so difficult to define! What is it that you risk? A little nervous fatigue to- morrow ___ no more. Do you not every day risk greater punishments for less reward? Very good then; you have even, to make it act more quickly and vigorously, imbibed your dose of "extrait gras" in a cup of black coffee. You have taken care to have the stomach empty, postponing dinner till nine or ten o'clock, to give full liberty of action to the poison. At the very most you will take a little soup in an hour's time. You are now sufficiently provisioned for a long and strange journey; the steamer has whistled, the sails are trimmed; and you have this curious advantage over ordinary travellers, that you have no idea where you are going. You have made your choice; here's to luck! I presume that you have taken the precaution to choose carefully your moment for setting out on this adventure. for every perfect debauch demands perfect leisure. You know, moreover, that hashish exaggerates, not only the individual, but also circumstances and environment. You have no duties to fulfil which require punctuality or exactitude; no domestic worries; no lover's sorrows. One must be careful on such points. Such a disappointment, an anxiety, an interior monition of a duty which demands your will and your attention, at some determinate moment, would ring like a funeral bell across your intoxication and poison your pleasure. Anxiety would become anguish, and disappointment torture. But if, having observed all these preliminary conditions, the weather is fine; if your are situated in favourable surroundings, such as a picturesque {70} landscape or a room beautifully decorated; and if in particular you have at command a little music, then all is for the best. Generally speaking, there are three phases in hashish intoxication, easy enough to distinguish, and it is not uncommon for beginners to obtain only the first symptoms of the first phase. You have heard vague chatter about the marvellous effects of hashish; your imagination has preconceived a special idea, an ideal intoxication, so to say. You long to know if the reality will indeed reach the height of your hope; that alone is sufficient to throw you from the very beginning into an anxious state, favourable enough to the conquering and enveloping tendency of the poison. Most novices, on their first initiation, complain of the slowness of the effects: they wait for them with a puerile impatience, and, the drug not acting quickly enough for their liking, they bluster long rigmaroles of incredulity, which are amusing enough for the old hands who know how hashish acts. The first attacks, like the symptoms of a storm which has held off for a long while, appear and multiply themselves in the bosom of this very incredulity. At first it is a certain hilarity, absurdly irresistible, which possesses you. These accesses of gaiety, without due cause, of which you are almost ashamed, frequently occur and divide the intervals of stupor, during which you seek in vain to pull yourself together. The simplest words, the most trivial ideas, take on a new and strange physiognomy. You are surprised at yourself for having up to now found them so simple. Incongruous likenesses and correspondences, impossible to foresee, interminable puns, comic sketches, spout eternally from your brain. The demon has encompassed you; it is useless to kick against the pricks of this hilarity, as painful as tickling {71} is! From time to time you laugh to yourself at your stupidity and your madness, and your comrades, if you are with others, laugh also, both at your state and their own; but as they laugh without malice, so you are without resentment. This gaiety, turn by turn idle or acute, this uneasiness in joy, this insecurity, this indecision, last, as a rule, but a very short time. Soon the meanings of ideas become so vague, the conducting thread which binds your conceptions together becomes so tenuous, that none but your accomplices can understand you. And, again, on this subject and from this point of view, no means of verifying it! Perhaps they only think that they understand you, and the illusion is reciprocal. This frivolity, these bursts of laughter, like explosions, seem like a true mania, or at least like the delusion of a maniac, to every man who is not in the same state as yourself. What is more, prudence and good sense, the regularity of the thoughts of him who witnesses, but has been careful not to intoxicate himself, rejoice you and amuse you as if they were a particular form of dementia. The parts are interchanged; his self- possession drives you to the last limits of irony. How monstrous comic is this situation, for a man who is enjoying a gaiety incomprehensible for him who is not placed in the same environment as he! The madman takes pity on the sage, and from that moment the idea of his superiority begins to dawn on the horizon of his intellect. Soon it will grow great and broad, and burst like a meteor. I was once witness of a scene of this kind which was carried very far, and whose grotesqueness was only intelligible to those who were acquainted, at least by means of observation of others, with the effects of the substance and {72} the enormous difference of diapason which it creates between two intelligences apparently equal. A famous musician, who was ignorant of the properties of hashish, who perhaps had never heard speak of it, finds himself in the midst of a company, several persons of which had taken a portion. They try to make him understand the marvellous effects of it; at these prodigious yarns he smiles courteously, by complaisance, like a man who is willing to play the fool for a minute or two. His contempt is quickly divined by these spirits, sharpened by the poison, and their laughter wounds him; these bursts of joy, this playing with words, these altered countenances ___ all this unwholesome atmosphere irritates him, and forces him to exclaim sooner, perhaps, than he would have wished that this is a poor "r“le," and that, moreover, it must be very tiring for those who have undertaken it. The comicality of it lightened them all like a flash; their joy boiled over. "This "r“le" may be good for you," said he, "but for me, no." "It is good for us; that is all we care about," replies egoistically one of the revellers. Not knowing whether he is dealing with genuine madmen or only with people who are pretending to be mad, our friend thinks that the part of discretion is to go away; but somebody shuts the door and hides the key. Another, kneeling before him, asks his pardon, in the name of the company, and declares insolently, but with tears, that despite his mental inferiority, which perhaps excites a little pity, they are all filled with a profound friendship for him. He makes up his mind to remain, and even condescends, after pressure, to play a little music. But the sounds of the violin, spreading themselves through {73} the room like a new contagion, stab -- the word is not too strong ___ first one of the revellers, then another. There burst forth deep and raucous sighs, sudden sobs, streams of silent tears. The frightened musician stops, and, approaching him whose ecstasy is noisiest, asks him if he suffers much, and what must be done to relieve him. One of the persons present, a man of common sense, suggests lemonade and acids; but the "sick man," his eyes shining with ecstasy, looks on them both with ineffable contempt. To wish to cure a man "sick of too much life, "sick" of joy! As this anecdote shows, goodwill towards men has a sufficiently large place in the feelings excited by hashish: a soft, idle, dumb benevolence which springs from the relaxation of the nerves. In support of this observation somebody once told me an adventure which had happened to him in this state of intoxication, and as he preserved a very exact memory of his feelings I understood perfectly into what grotesque and inextricable embarrassment this difference of diapason and of pity of which I was just speaking had thrown him. I do not remember if the man in question was at his first or his second experiment; had he taken a dose which was a little too strong, or was it that the hashish had produced, without any apparent cause, effects much more vigorous than the ordinary ___ a not infrequent occurrence? He told me that across the scutcheon of his joy, this supreme delight of feeling oneself full of life and believing oneself full of genius, there had suddenly smitten the bar sinister of terror. At first dazzled by the beauty of his sensations, he had suddenly fallen into fear of them. He had asked himself the question: "What would become of my intelligence {74} and of my bodily organs if this state" (which he took for a supernatural state) "went on always increasing; if my nerves became continually more and more delicate?" By the power of enlargement which the spiritual eye of the patient possesses, this fear must be an unspeakable torment. "I was," he said, "like a runaway horse galloping towards an abyss, wishing to stop and being unable to do so. Indeed, it was a frightful ride, and my thought, slave of circumstance, of "milieu," of accident, and of all that may be implied by the word chance, had taken a turn of pure, absolute rhapsody. 'It is too late, it is too late!' I repeated to myself ceaselessly in despair. When this mood, which seemed to me to last for an infinite time, and which I daresay only occupied a few minutes, changed, when I thought that at last I might dive into the ocean of happiness so dear to Easterns which succeeds this furious phase, I was overwhelmed by a new misfortune; a new anxiety, trivial enough, puerile enough, tumbled upon me. I suddenly remembered that I was invited to dinner, to an evening party of respectable people. I foresaw myself in the midst of a well-behaved and discreet crowd, every one master of himself, where I should be obliged to conceal carefully the state of my mind while under the glare of many lamps. I was fairly certain of success, but at the same time my heart almost gave up at the thought of the efforts of will which it would be necessary to bring into line in order to win. By some accident, I know not what, the words of the Gospel, "Woe unto him by whom offences come!" leapt to the surface of my memory, and in the effort to forget them, in concentrating myself upon forgetting them, I repeated them to myself ceaselessly. My catastrophe, for it was indeed a catastrophe, {75} then took a gigantic shape: despite my weakness, I resolved on vigorous action, and went to consult a chemist, for I did not know the antidotes, and I wished to go with a free and careless spirit to the circle where my duty called me; but on the threshold of the shop a sudden thought seized me, haunted me, forced me to reflect. As I passed I had just seen myself in the looking-glass of a shop-front, and my face had startled me. This paleness, these lips compressed, these starting eyes! ___ I shall frighten this good fellow, I said to myself, and for what a trifle! Add to that the ridicule which I wished to avoid, the fear of finding people in the shop. But my sudden goodwill towards this unknown apothecary mastered all my other feelings. I imagined to myself this man as being as sensitive as I myself was at this dreadful moment, and as I imagined also that his ear and his soul must, like my own, tremble at the slightest noise, I resolved to go in on tiptoe. 'It would be impossible,' I said to myself, 'to show too much discretion in dealing with a man on whose kindness I am about to intrude.' The