This is file 220a2-1.r1




1.




   We see again set forth the complementary character of Nuith and Hadith. Nu conceals Had because He is Everywhere in the Infinite, and She manifests Him for the same reason. See verse 3. Every Individual manifests the Whole; and the Whole conceals every Individual. The Soul interprets the Universe; and the Universe veils the Soul. Nature understands Herself by becoming self-conscious in Her units; and the Consciousness loses its sense of separateness by dissolution in Her.


   There has been much difficulty in the orthography (in sacred languages) of these names. Nu is clearly stated to be 56,   ; but Had is only hinted obscurely. This matter is discussed later more fully; verses 15 and 16.




2.




   Khabs -- `a star' -- is an unit of Nuit, and therefore Nuit Herself. This doctrine is enormously difficult of apprehension, even after these many years of study.


   Hadit is the `core of every star,' verse 6. He is thus the Impersonal Identity within the Individuality of `every man and every woman.'


   He is `not extended' that is, without condition of any sort in the metaphysical sense. Only in the highest trances can the nature of these truths be realized. It is indeed a suprarational experience not dissimilar to those characteristic of the ``Star-Sponge'' Vision previously described that can help us here. The trouble is that the truth itself is unfitted to the dualistic reason of ``normal'' mankind. Hadit seems to be the principle of Motion which is everywhere, yet is not extended in any dimension except as it chances to combine with the ``Matter'' which is Nuit. There can evidently be no manifestation apart from this conjunction. A ``Khabs'' or Star is apparently any nucleus where this conjunction has taken place. The real philosophical difficulty about this cosmogony is not concerned with any particular equation, or even with the Original Equation. We can understand x=ab, x, = a, b, & c; and also 0  =pa   qb, whether pa -qb = 0 or not. But we ask how the homogeneity of both Nuit and Hadit can ever lead to even the illusion of ``difference.'' The answer appears  to be that this difference appears naturally with the self-realization of Nuit as the totality of possibilities; each of these, singly and in combination, is satisfied or set in motion by Hadit, to compose a particular manifestation.  could possess no signification at all, unless there were diverse dimensions wherein it had no extension. ``Nothing'' means nothing save from the point of view of ``Two,'' just as ``Two'' is monstrous unless it is seen as a mode of ``Nothing.l''


   The above explanation appears somewhat disingenuous, since there is no means whatever of distinguishing any Union  H N = R from another. We must postulate a further stage.


   R (Ra-Hoor-Khuit) Kether, Unity, is always itself; but we may suppose that a number of such homogeneous positive manifestations may form groups differing from each other as to size and structure so as to create the illusion of diversity.




3.




   This is again interesting as throwing light on the thesis; Every man and every woman is a star. There is no place soever that is not a Centre of Light.


   This Truth is to be realised by direct perception, not merely by intellection. It is axiomatic; it cannot be demonstrated. It is to be assimilated by experience of the Vision of the ``Star-Sponge.''




4.




   See later, verse 13, ``Thou (i.e. the Beast, who is here the Mask, or ``per-sona,'' of Hadit) wast the knower.'' Hadit possesses the power to know, Nuit that of being known. Nuit is not unconnected with the idea of Nibbana, the ``Shoreless Sea, '' in which Knowledge is Not. 


   Hadit is hidden in Nuit, and knows Her, She being an object of knowledge; but He is not knowable, for He is merely that part of Her which She formulates in order that She may be known.




5.




   The `old time' is the Aeon of the Dying God. Some of his rituals are founded on an utterly false metaphysic and cosmogony; but others are based on Truth. We mend these, and end these.


   This ``Knowledge'' is the initiated Wisdom of this Aeon of Horus. 


   See Book 4, Part III, for an account of the new principles of magick.


   Note that Knowledge is Daath, Child of Chokmah by Binah, and crown of Microprosopus; yet he is not one of the Sephiroth, and his place is in the Abyss. By this symbolism we draw attention to the fact that Knowledge is by nature impossible; for it implies Duality and is therefore relative. Any proposition of Knowledge may be written ``ARB:'' ``A has the relation R to B.'' Now if A and B are identical, the proposition conveys no knowledge at all. If A is not identical with B, ARB implies ``A is identical with BC'' this assumes that not less than three distinct ideas exist. In every case, we must proceed either to the identity which means ultimately ``Nothing,'' or to divergent diversities which only seem to mean something so long as we refrain from pushing the analysis of any term to its logical elements. For example, ``Sugar is sugar'' is obviously not knowledge. But no more is this: ``Sugar is a sweet white crystalline carbo-hydrate.'' For each of these four terms describes a sensory impression on ourselves; and we define our impressions only in terms of such things as sugar. Thus ``sweet'' means ``the quality ascribed by our taste to honey, sugar, etc.''; ``white'' is ``what champaks, zinc oxide, sugar, etc. report to our eyesight'' and so on. The proposition is ultimately an identity, for all our attempts to evade the issue by creating complications. ``Knowledge'' is therefore not a ``thing-in-itself'' it is rightly denied a place upon the Tree of Life; it pertains to the Abyss.


   Besides the above considerations, it may be observed that Knowledge, so far as it exists at all, even as a statement of relation, is no more than a momentary phenomenon of consciousness. It is annihilated in the instant of its creation. For no sooner do we assent to ARB than ARB is absorbed in our conception of A. After the nine-days' wonder of ``The earth revolves round the sun,'' we modify our former idea of Earth. ``Earth'' is intuitively classed with other solar satellites. The proposition vanishes automatically as it is assimilated. Knowledge, while it exists as such is consequently sub judice, at the best.


   What then may we understand by this verse, with its capital K for ``Knowledge:'' What is it, and how shall it ``go aright?'' The key is in the word ``go.'' It cannot ``be,'' as we have seen above; it is the fundamental error of the ``Black Brothers'' in their policy of resisting all Change, to try to maintain it as fixed and absolute. But (as the Tree of Life indicates) Knowledge is the means by which the conscious mind, Microprosopus, reaches to Understanding and to Wisdom, its mother and father, which reflect respectively Nuith and Hadit from the Ain and Kether. The process is to use each new item of knowledge to correct and increase one's comprehension of the Subject of the Proposition. Thus ARB should tell us: A is (not A, as we supposed) but A. This facilitates the discovery A,R.C leading to A, is A ; and so on. In practice, every thing that we learn about (e.g.) ``horse'' helps us to understand -- to enjoy  -- the idea. The difference between the scholar and the schoolboy is that the former glows and exults when he is reminded of some word like ``Thalassa.'' Ourselves:-What a pageant of passion empurples our minds whenever we think of the number 93! Most of all, each new thing that we know about ourselves helps us to realize what we mean by our ``Star.''


   Now, ``the rituals of the old time,'' are no longer valid vehicles; Knowledge cannot `go aright' until they are adapted to the Formula of the New Aeon. Their defects are due principally to two radical errors. (1.) The Universe was conceived as possessing a fixed centre, or summit; an absolute standard to which all things might be referred; an Unity, or God. (Mystics were angry and bewildered, often enough, when attaining to ``union with God'' they found him equally in all). This led to making a difference between one thing and another, and so to the ideas of superiority, of sin, etc., ending by absurdities of all kinds, alike in theology, ethics, and science. (2) The absolute antithesis between the pairs of opposites. This is really a corollary of (1). There was an imaginary ``absolute evil'' which made Manichaeanism necessary -- despite the cloaks of the Causists -- and meant ``That which leads one away from God.'' But each man, while postulating an absolute ``God'' and ``Evil'' were really expressions of personal prejudice. A man who ``bowed humbly to the Authority of'' the Pope, or the Bible, or the Sanhedrim, or the Oracle of Apollo, or the tribal Medicine-Man, none the less expressed truly his own Wish to abdicate responsibility. In the light of this Book, we know that the centre is everywhere, the circumference nowhere; that ``Everyman and every woman is a star,'' a ``Khabs,'' the name of the house of Hadit; that ``The word of Sin is Restriction.'' To us, then, ``evil'' is a relative term; it is ``that which hinders one from fulfilling his true Will.''(E.g., rain is ``good'' or ``bad'' for the farmer according to the requirements of his crops).


   The Osirian Rituals inculcating self-sacrifice to an abstract ideal, mutilation to appease an ex cathedra morality, fidelity to a priori formulae, etc. teach false and futile methods of acquiring false Knowledge; they must be  `cast away' or `purged'. The Schools of Initiation must be reformed.




6.




   It follows that, as Hadit can never be known, there is no death. The death of the individual is his awakening to the impersonal immortality of Hadit. This applies less to physical death than to the Crossing of the Abyss; for which see Liber 418, Fourteenth Aethyr. One may attain to be aware that one is but a particular `child' of the Play of Hadit and Nuit; one's personality is then perceived as being a disguise. It is not only not a living thing, as one had thought; but a mere symbol without substance, incapable of life. It is the conventional form of a certain cluster of thoughts, themselves the partial and hieroglyphic symbols of an `ego.' The conscious and sensible `man' is to his Self just what the printed letters on this page are to me who have caused them to manifest in colour and form. They are arbitrary devices for conveying my thought; I could use French or Greek just as well. Nor is this thought, here conveyed, more than one ray of my Orb; and even that whole Orb is but the garment of Me. The analogy is precise; therefore when one becomes ``the knower,'' it involves the `death' of all sense of the Ego. One perceives one's personality precisely as I now do these printed letters; and they are forgotten, just as, absorbed in my thought, the trained automatism of my mind and body expresses that thought in writing, without attention on my part, still less with identification of the extremes involved in the process.




7.




   ``It is I that go.'' The Book Aleph must be consulted for a full demonstration of this truth. We may say briefly that Hadit is Motion, that is, Change or `Love.' The symbol of Godhead in Egypt was the Ankh, which is a sandal-strap, implying the Power to Go; and it suggests the Rosy Cross, the Fulfilment of Love, by its shape.


   The Wheel end the Circle are evidently symbols of Nuith; this sentence insists upon the conception of Lingam-Yoni. But beyond the obvious relation, we observe two geometrical definitions. The axle is a cylinder set perpendicularly to the plane of the wheel; thus Hadit supplies the third dimension to Nuith. It suggests that Matter is to be conceived as Two-dimensional; that is, perhaps, as possessed of two qualities, extension and potentiality. To these Hadit brings motion and position. The wheel moves; manifestation now is possible. Its perception implies three-dimensional space, and time. But note that the Mover is himself not moved. The ``cube in the circle'' emphasizes this question of dimensions. The cube is rectilinear (therefore phallic no less than the axle); its unity suggests perfection projected as a ``solid'' for human perception; its square faces affirm balance, equity, and limitation; its six-sidedness sets it among the solar symbols. It is thus like the Sun in the Zodiac, which is no more than the field for His fulfilment in His going. He, by virtue of his successive relations with each degree of the circle, clothes Himself with an appearance of ``Matter in Motion,'' although absolute motion through space is a meaningless expression (Eddington, Op, cit.). None the less, every point in the cube -- there are 2 of them --  has an unique relation with every point in the circle exactly balanced against an equal and opposite relation. We have thus Matter that both is and is not, Motion that both moves and moves not, interacting in a variety of ways which is infinite to manifest individuals, each of which is unlike any other, yet is symmetrically supported by its counterpart. Note that even at the centre of gravity of the cube no two rays are identical except in mere length. They differ as to their point of contact with the circle, their right ascension, and their relation with the other points of the cube.


   Why is Nuith restricted to two dimensions? We usually think of space as a sphere. ``None --  -- and two:'' extension and potentiality are Her only projections of Naught. It is strange, by the way to find that modern mathematics says ``Spherical space is not very easy to imagine'' (Eddington, Op.cit.p.158) and prefers to attribute a geometrical form whose resemblance to the Kteis is most striking. For Nuit is, philosophically speaking, the archetype of the Kteis, giving appropriate Form to all Being, and offering every possibility of fulfilment of every several point that it envelops. But Nuith cannot be symbolized as three-dimensional, in our system; each unit has position by three spatial, and one temporal, coordinates. It cannot exist, in our consciousness, with less, as a reality. Each `individual' must be a `point-interval' he must be the product of some part of the Matter of Nuit (with special energies) determined in space by his relations with his neighbours, and in time by his relations with himself.


   It is evidently ``a foolish word'' for Hadit to say ``Come unto me,'' as did Nuit naturally enough, meaning ``Fulfil thy possibilities'' for who can ``come unto'' Motion itself, who draw near unto that which is in very truth his innermost identity?




8.




   Harpocrates is also the Dwarf-Soul, the Secret Self of every man, the Serpent with the Lion's Head. Now Hadit knows Nuit by virtue of his `Going' or `Love.' It is therefore wrong to worship Hadit; one is to be Hadit, and worship Her. This is clear even from His instruction ``To worship me'' in verse 22 of this chapter. Confer, Cap.I, v.9. We are exhorted to offer ourselves unto Nuit, pilgrims to all her temples. It is bad Magick to admit that one is other than One's inmost self. One should plunge passionately into every posseble experience; by doing so one is purged of those personal prejudices which we took so stupidly for ourselves, though they prevented us from realizing our true Wills and from knowing our Names and Natures. The Aspirant must well understand that it is no paradox to say that the Annihilation of the Ego in the Abyss is the condition of emancipating the true Self, and exalting it to unimaginable heights. So long as one remains ``one's self,'' one is overwhelmed by the Universe; destroy the sense of self, and every event is equally an expression of one's Will, since its occurrence is the resultant of the concourse of the forces which one recognizes as one's own.




9.




   This verse is very thoroughly explained in Liber Aleph. ``All in this kind are but shadows'' says Shakespeare, referring to actors. The Universe is a Puppet-Play for the amusement of Nuit and Hadit in their Nuptials; a very Midsummer Night's Dream. So then we laugh at the mock woes of Pyramus and Thisbe, the clumsy gambols of Bottom; for we understand the Truth of Things, how all is a Dance of Ecstasy. ``Were the world understood, Ye would know it was good, a Dance to a lyrical measure!'' The nature of events must be ``pure joy'' for obviously, whatever occurs is the fulfilment of the Will of its master. Sorrow thus appears as the result of any unsuccessful -- therefore, ill-judged --  struggle. Acquiescence in the order of Nature is the ultimate Wisdom.


   One must understand the Universe perfectly, and be utterly indifferent to its pressure. These are the virtues which constitute a Master of the Temple. Yet each man must act What he will; for he is energized by his own nature. So long as he works ``without lust of result'' and does his duty for its own sake, he will know that ``the sorrows are but shadows.'' And he himself is ``that which remains'' for he can no more be destroyed, or his true Will be thwarted, than Matter diminish or Energy disappear. He is a necessary Unit of the Universe, equal and opposite to the sum total of all the others; and his Will is similarly the final factor which completes the equilibrium of the dynamical equation. He cannot fail if he would; thus, his sorrows are but shadows -he could not see them if he kept his gaze fixed on his goal, the Sun.




10.




   As related in Equinox I, VII, I was at the time of this revelation, a rationalistic Buddhist, very convinced of the First Noble Truth: ``Everything is Sorrow.'' I supposed this point of view to be an absolute and final truth -- as if Apemantus were the only character in Shakespeare!


   It is also explained in that place how I was prepared for this Work by that period of Dryness. If I had been in sympathy with it, my personality would have interfered. I should have tried to better my instructions.


   See, in Liber 418, the series of visions by which I actually transcended Sorrow. But the considerations set forth in the comment on verse 9 lead to a simpler, purer, and more perfect attainment for those who can assimilate them in the subconscious mind by the process described in the comment on verse 6.


   It may encourage certain types of aspirant if I emphasize my personal position. AIWAZ made no mistake when he spoke this verse -- and the triumphant contempt of his tone still rings in my ear! After seventeen years of unparalleled spiritual progress, of unimaginably intense ecstasies, of beatitudes prolonged for whole months, of initiations indescribably exalted, of proof piled on proof of His power, His vigilance, His love, after being protected and energized with incredible aptness, I find myself still only too ready to grumble, nay even to doubt. It seems as if I resented the whole business. There art times when I feel that the amoeba, the bourgeois, and the cow represent the ABC of enviable creatures. There may be a melancholic strain in me, as one might expect in a case of renal weakness such as mine. In any event, it is surely a most overwhelming proof that AIWAZ is not myself, but my master, that He could force me to write verse 9, at a time when I was both intellectually and spiritually disgusted with, and despairing of, the Universe, as well as physically alarmed about my health.




11.




   This compulsion was that of true inspiration. It was the Karma of countless incarnations of struggle towards the light. There is a sharp repulsion, physical and mental, toward any initiation, like that towards death.


   The above paragraph states only a part of the truth. I am not sure that it is not an attempt to explain away the verse, which humiliates me. I remember clearly enough the impulse to refuse to go on, and the fierce resentment at the refusal of my muscles to obey me. Reflect that I was being compelled to make an abject recantation of practically every article of my creed, and I had not even Cranmer's excuse. I was proud of my personal prowess as a poet, hunter, and mountaineer of admittedly dauntless virility; yet I was being treated like a hypnotized imbecile, only worse, for I was perfectly aware of what I was doing.




12.




   The use of capitals ``Me'' and ``Thee'' emphasizes that Hadit was wholly manifested in The Beast. It is to be remembered that The Beast has agreed to follow the instructions communicated to Him only in order to show that `nothing would happen if you broke all the rules.' Poor fool! The Way of Mastery is to break all the rules -- but you have to know them perfectly before you can do this; otherwise you are not in a position to transcend them.


   Aiwaz here explains that his power over me depended upon the fact that Hadit is verily ``the core of every star.'' As is well known, there is a limit to the power of the hypnotist; he cannot overcome the resistance of the Unconscious of his patient. My own Unconscious was thus in alliance with Aiwaz; taken between two fires, my conscious self was paralyzed so long as the pressure lasted. It will be seen later -- verses 61 to 69 --  that my consciousness was ultimately invaded by the Secret Self, and surrendered unconditionally, so that, it proclaimed, loudly and gladly, from its citadel, the victory of its rightful Lord. The mystery is indeed this, that in so prosperous and joyous a city, there should still be groups of malcontents whose grumblings are occasionally audible.