In crossing the Abyss the aim is to annihilate the Ego and its appurtenances altogether. In Qabalistic symbolism to attain to Zero. The peril is therefore that of identification with any of the products of disingegration. Choronzon, therefore, by which same we signify the idea of Dispersion, has no place within the Supernal Triad. The threshold of initiation, the Abyss, lies wholly without the door Daleth. The completeness of the disintegration, the impotence ([...]) and idleness ([...]) is guaranteed by the absence of the love (Daleth) which might otherwise bind together the dissipated events to form a unity (in the 7th Aethyr, Liber 418, we learn that if the Black Brothers were only able to look up to the Goddess of Love (Daleth) above them they might yet attain to Understanding.)

In the Initiation to Adeptus Minor, the conditions are altogether other. The aim is the attainment of unity not negativity, and there is no such perfection in the Sephiroth of the Ruach, Chesed, Geburah, Tiphereth, which compose the Grades of the Inner Order (R.R. et A.C.) as necessarily excluding Choronzon from the three Grades of the AA. The student is now referred to the Elemental Watch-Towers of Sir Edward Kelly (See The Equinox I:7 - 8). The four Elemental Tablets (12 ;tm 13) are bound together by the little Tablet of Spirit ( 4 ;tm 5), or, when the Tablets are arranged to show them each as a sub-section of the unity of Tetragrammaton by a black cross containing the letters of this little Tablet of Spirit. The names of evil demons are found notably by taking some imperfect and unbalanced symbol for the Watch-Towers such as a bilateral name from beneath the bar of the Calvary Cross in any of the Lesser Angles -- and prefixing the appropriate letter from the Black Cross.

The doctrine implied is that the nature of Spirit is not only represented by Shin, the Holy Spirit, whose descent into the midst of Tetragrammaton sanctifies and illuminates the blind forces of the Elements, but is also soulless matter, dark, formless and void, the mere basis or background for the manifestation of all phenomena indifferently; and this truth is also symbolized by the blackness and undeveloped potentiality of Akasa as explained by the legend of Shiva mentioned in a previous paragraph.

Spirit may therefore be manifested either as the Holy Guardian Angel or as the Evil Persona, the Dweller on the Threshold, portrayed sensationally for trade by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his romance Zanoni. The doctrine is also frequently found in folk-lore, where man is represented as attended by both a good and an evil genius. The horror of the latter is intensified by his function as the alternative to the Holy Guardian Angel. Now, in the case of Exempt Adept, should he be beaten back from the City of the Pyramids by failure to comply perfectly with the formula of ``love under will'' he remains lost in the Abyss with no future possibility than to identify himself in turn with each incoherent and unintelligible phenomenon that appears in the sensorium of the man, who has been disintegrated as the first to each and every imperfection which claims to be. Entirely different is the case of the Dominus Liminis whose operation, if unsucessful, may be a simple failure perhaps due to no serious error of his own. Apart from slight discouragement he should be able to try again without disadvantage. Indeed he should have used his failure as a means of instruction. But he may also fail from not having thoroughly assimilated the injunction of the Hieraeus in the ceremony of his initiation into the Grade of Neophyte: ``Fear is failure and the forerunner of failure. Be thou therefore without fear! for in the heart of the coward Virtue abideth not!''

Similarly, he may have been unable to fulfil the formula of the Hierophant in that ceremony: ``Remember that Unbalanced Force is evil. Unbalanced Mercy is but weakness: Unbalanced Severity is but oppression.'' Once more the fascination of evil may be no less perilous than the fear. In any case he may expect to be confronted first of all by his Evil Genius (cf., further, the ceremony of Zelator in GD -- the appearance of the Angels Samael, Metatron, and Sandalphon). He may fail to abide the onslaught. He may be thrust back from the threshold, and his defeat may be more or less damaging according to circumstances. But his fear may be so great as to induce him to transform it into fascination, or his exhaustion so complete that he is prepared to purchase rest at any price. In either case the result may be that he accepts his Evil Persona as his Guardian Angel. I should be loth to assert that even so fearful a form of failure is necessarily fatal and final although evidently it must always create a disastrous Karma as involving the assertion fortified by the most solemn oaths and sealed by the most intense ecstasy of the absolute existence of evil, in a sense of the word, actually and ad hoc defined by himself, i.e., he has acquiesced in duality, established an interior conflict in himself, and ceremonially blasphemed and denied the unity of his own True Will. Appalling as is such a catastrophe, it lacks the element of finality since the principles involved do not extend above Tiphereth. He has become a Black Magician no doubt, but this is far indeed from being a Black Brother. It cannot even be said that such an one thereby manifests any tendency to become a Black Brother when the time is ripe; for his union even with the personification of Evil is also an act of love under will, though that will be false and vitiated by every conceivable defect and error. His chief danger is presumably that the intensity of the suffering which results from this may, as in the case of Glyndon in Zanoni, lead him to seek to escape altogether from Magick, to refrain from any act of love for fear lest he stray still farther from his true path. Let him remember the words of my brother: ``If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.'' Let him resolutely continue in iniquity, invoking the vengeance of the Gods, so that at the end the excess of his love and its transcendence of anguish may bring him back into the way of truth.

From the above it should have become clear how it is that the Evil Genius is within the Sanctuary of the Temple of the Rosy Cross whose formula is ``love under will,'' while Choronzon is excluded alike from that shrine and from the City of the Pyramids whose law, although still ``love under will,'' understands both those terms as without limit.



34




The Evil is now described. The language is of course symbolic. At the same time the appearance here given might correspond very closely with the actual expressions of experience.

We are twice told that he ``stood'' which is to be contrasted with the activity of ``going'' of the Holy Guardian Angel (see verses 37 - 41). It is the peculiar token of any God that he should go. For this reason he bears the Ankh or sandal-strap in the Egyptian monuments. This antithesis is connected with the conception of the Black Brothers as shutting themselves up, or resenting change. The thelemic conception of the Universe is dynamic, so that stasis is inevitably the symbol of conflict with Nature. It is the equivalent of Death; for Death being a change, it is an event, i.e., a phenomenon of activity of life. This doctrine should be studied very thoroughly in CCXX.

Let the student attend, moreover, to the contrast between the symbols of the Holy Guardian Angel and those of the Evil Genius. The former, (See verses 38 - 41) are positive, active, solid, dynamic; of chariots, horseman, spearmen, the weapons of Jupiter and Pan are tremendously vital in his hands. Per contra the Evil Genius is vague, unreal and inactive. His characteristics are horror and emptiness. His eyes are ghastly, which I take in its strict sense as connected with geist. And this epithet is peculiarly abhorrent since the sense of sight is attributed to Fire, and should be clear-cut and luminous. Such activities as he commands are slow, cozy and vermicular. They resemble wells of poisoned water, i.e. they lurk and receive as little light as possible, whereas the ideal eye should dart forth flame. He causes even the air about him to stagnate and stink. Anatomically he resembles a fish, a cold-blooded inhabitant of the passive element. (Note the fish as the accepted symbol of Jesus). Even so, he is old, slow-moving, while the chief virtue of fish is to be quickly gliding. And he is gnarled, offering unnecessary resistance to his own movement, and increasing its friction. Hideous!

Shells or Qliphoth are lifeless excrement; and Abaddon is the destroyer or disperser -- the destroyer by dispersion.



35




His method of combat as distinct from that of the Angel which is to pierce with a spear or smite with a thunderbolt is to envelope with his demoniacal and therefore illusory tentacles. This method is to restrict the Aspirant well knowing that ``the word of Sin is restriction.'' He succeeds in communicating the ``eight fears,'' which are connected with the eight heads of the stooping dragon. (See, for this symbolism, ``The Temple of Solomon the King,'' The Equinox I:1 - 3) They are the restrictions to the Supernal Triad attempted by the seven lower Sephiroth and Daath. Hence the Stooping Dragon is shown on the Tree of Life below the Abyss after the Fall, and on the floor of the Vault of Christian Rosencreutz. In the older symbolism they are the eight Keys of Edom.



36




The Aspirant is ``anointed with the right sweet oil of the Magister.'' The Magister pertaining to Binah, this oil may be taken to symbolize his Neschamah or aspiration. See the account of the Holy Oil given in Book 4, Part II. (The Holy Oil is the Aspiration of the Magician; it is that which consecrates him to the performance of the Great Work; and such is its efficacy that it also consecrates all the furniture of the Temple and the instruments thereof. It is also the grace or chrism; for this aspiration is not ambition; it is a quality bestowed from above...It is the pure light translated into terms of desire. It is not the Will of the Magician, the desire of the lower to reach the higher; but it is that spark of the higher in the Magician which wishes to unite the lower with itself.) Also the essential property of oil is to diminish friction and increase ease of movement. It is therefore the precisely right reply to this type of attack.

Furthermore, the Aspirant compares himself to a stone, which refers to the cubic stone symbolic of perfect adeptship, being the squared and equilibrated perfection of the spiritual Masonry; it is bounded by six squares which signify protection by Macroprosopus. See also the symbolism of the Stone in the Zohar, a subject far too extensive to make more than this single indication practicable. There is, furthermore, an identification of the Stone with the Sacred Phallus and of the Sun as worshipped in the Temple of Diana at Ephesus and in the word ABRASAX. In our own holy books, see V:6 and 58 of this Book and Liber VII V:2. (We made as a temple of stones in the shape of the Universe, even as thou didst wear openly and I concealed). In this last connection note the proper juxtaposition of stones as symbolic of the Great Work. This is to be found also in The Voice of Silence, where those who have attained build themselves into a wall to protect mankind. See also Liber VII VII:6. (We know why all is hidden in the stone, within the coffin, within the mighty sepulchre, and we too answer Olalam! Imal! Tutulu! as it is written in the ancient book).

This stone is a missile in the ``sling of a boy of the woodlands'' who may be taken to represent the most youthful and active form of Pan, i.e. the aspirant considers himself as flung forth from the infinite and released from his swathings. (Cf. Liber XVII, VII:3 - 5) that he may perform the Great Work.



37




The aspirant is smooth; his qualities have been perfectly harmonised. He is hard, having perfected his resistance to extreme pressure. The analogy is with ivory. Ivory is the substance of the tooth, the letter Shin of the Holy Spirit and also of the substance of the skeleton on which his being is being built. The sound Sh moreover represents the power of silence as well as the activity and alertness which accompany the will to manifest oneself through one's True Will. I here quote from my original notes on the intrinsic meaning of the letter: ``S is the serpent-hiss, the sharp breath, teeth bared yet clenched, which is the natural token of alarm, hate, defiance, natural to a man who meets his fellow-aberration from legitimate monkeyhood. By it he recognizes his brother, and names him accordingly, when need was. (Later, when alarm had died, we have still ``sh!'' -- Hush! -- not a call for Silence, which it breaks, but a claim on the Attention of other men.) In S is this idea of fear and anger, combines these ideas; so the first S-gods were storm-gods.

Later, this breath, air moving in men, might be known for a proof that he lived; then this breath-letter, S, might come to mean ``life.'' For instance, God breathes on Adam to make him a ``living soul,'' and Elisha raises a boy to life by breathing on him. The Ruach Elohim again is a Breath that broods Chaos. At last we find a Holy Ghost begetting by dint of a breath. And was not Maut the Mother-Vulture impregnated by the wind? Perhaps too the hiss of the rain which fertilizes earth, as even a savage must observe in tropical lands where the result is so swift, may have helped him to the convention that S should mean life. This rain comes from the air which he breathes, though from beyond him; it seems then to him natural to make Zeus or Shu rain-gods and life-gods as well as air-gods, storm-gods, names for the fierce, the fearful anger which at first only meant ``an enemy'' -- his fellow-man!'' (Diary, June 1920).

The Evil Genius is accordingly unable to dominate the aspirant. He having proved his virtue is now ready to receive the Holy Guardian Angel. Firstly is the noise of His coming. ``For the Lord shall descend from Heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God.'' ``The Lord'' is Adonai -- which is the Hebrew for `my Lord'; and He descends from Heaven, the supernal Eden, the Sahasrara Cakkra in man, with a `shout,' a `voice' and a `trump,' again airy symbols, for it is air that carries sound. These sounds refer to those heard by the Adept at the moment of rapture.'' (Book 4, Part II). This by itself is sufficient to destroy the illusion of the Evil Genius. The ``abyss of the great void'' is unfolded before the aspirant, i.e., all positive phenomena disappear. What remains is the ``infinite space'' of Nuit. The continuous body of infinite possibilities.



38




''The waveless sea of Eternity'' repeats this idea. It is the timeless menstruum of action, unstirred by any vibration, while ready to receive and transmit that which is imposed thereupon by the will. The Holy Guardian Angel approaches rapidly ('rides') accompanied by his hosts (Note ;heTzBA, an host = 93).



39




The arrival of the Angel is too rapid for the perception of the Adept. Cf. II:60 etc. The symbolism of the spear should be studied in the legends of the Crucifixion, of Parzifal, and others. The matter is further elucidated in Bagh-i-Muattar.



40




The Thunderer is Jupiter, here considered as the creative paternal, and warrior Lord of the Air. The bolt is the Swastika, or Disc of Zeus. Its symbolism is ultimately identical with that of the sphere. The bird is the natural symbol of the aspiring soul. Cf. II:39 - 41. The Swastika has the shape of the letter Aleph whose Temurah is ;hePLA, (see Sepher Sephiroth) by which we mean the instantaneous destruction of the Ego in Samadhi. The second phrase echoes the two former. The Lord of the Garden is Pan or Priapus whom my brother Catullus constantly represents as punishing thieves in his peculiar manner. There is a special symbolism of the thief in which perhaps we find trances of the Legend of the Crucifixion and the ritual of the priest of Nemi but its detailed signification has been to a great extent lost or abandoned.



41




Cf. II:15, similar passage. I:33 - 41 especially verses 33 and 39.

Immediately the Adept has attained to the Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel he loses no time, but goes on the way of his True Will, borne upon the flood of the physical life which he has spilt in order to enjoy the impersonal and effortless life in communion with his Angel.



42 - 44




Present a lyrical picture of the Mystery of Evil.



42




The bliss of the union of the Adept and his Angel appears to contain a flaw, in that being an operation of change ``the taint of generation'' it shares the impermanence of all complex phenomena and therefore the liability to sorrow. See verse 21.



43




Admits that the most admirable manifestations spring from deep-seated mysteries. Corruption lies at the heart of all things.



44




No attempt is made to contradict the above or to explain it away. The solution comes from looking at the other side of the matter. Corruption itself and all the mysteries of sorrow are to be held matters for rejoicing, since they are the engines whose work results in truth and beauty. Cf. CCXX I:29 - 30.



45 - 53




This passage is the most difficult in the Chapter. It is difficult to consider its verses separately. Yet there seems to be no proper coherence in them, no single orderly idea is their diversity.

The solution seems to be in the direction of a realisation that the passage is in the nature of progressive discovery. It resembles the account of a mental journey. One of the keys to it is the sudden shifting of the point of view noted above, vv. 43 - 44. The contemplation of Beauty leads to the reflection upon the elements of Beauty which we do not recognise as beautiful because our sensorium is not adjusted to that stage of existence. Cf. my poem on ``Ovariotomy'', where the plastic beauty of woman seems to be destroyed by cutting her up. Yet the beauty reappears in a different form when the cells of which she is composed are examined under the microscope. Let us apply this key to the passage here under consideration.



45




In the first sentence attention is called to the brilliance of the appearance of the Angel. The second sentence recognises that beneath this appearance is a symbol of terror, viz., Saturn, who is here understood by his astrological and legendary attributions. We must be at pains to note that Saturn is the god of generation. This establishes a reference to verse 42. Saturn is called the devourer of his children because he is Time who conceals in oblivion the phenomena he has brought forth from the inane. But there is a further meaning which is that he is not bound by the results of his action. Whatever he does results only in a transitory phenomenon which vanishes automatically as time goes on. Shallow minded people are accustomed to regret impermanence. They fail to realize that if everything that happened remained in existence the burden of facts would soon become intolerable. Nature requires an excretory system or she would soon become clogged with the multiplicity of her own illusions. The progress of the human mind depends upon its power to assimilate the details of any work. They constitute the finished product and appear therein only in a changed form. The rough working must be destroyed. The process is continuous. The art of progress is to compose constantly more complex and more comprehensive synthesis; just as the words of a poem surrender their intrinsic meaning in order to compose the unity of the impression made by the poem as a whole, so again the poems of the poet. This formula is universally applicable. It is particularly the subject of biology.



46




The work of Saturn seems no longer mysterious and terrible because its nature changes and is lost in the admirable result of its operation.



47

Cf. CCXX, I:22 - 23 and similar passages. It is natural to us to make a distinction between things, to prefer one thing to another. But the Angel is above such duality. All things equally contribute to his perfection. He is said to be ``absolved from the Division of the Shadows'', i.e. from the illusion of dividuality. It is only an illusion that difference is apparent between diverse phenomena. The most fatal mistake that the Adept can make is to emphasise the desirability of one set of things and the undersirability of another. If he persist in so doing his sectarianism will thwart his ideal so that his Angel, instead of being complete, comprehensive, and perfect, will represent his personal prejudices. In such a case the Adept will suffer whenever his attention is called to any idea in Nature which is not successfully transmuted and included in the scope of his aspiration.



48




This doctrine is restated. The coral is the Karma produced by the accumulation of our acts. This construction has taken place in time and its need is to be covered by the rhythm of Eternal Delight. The Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel set as a point of contact between two continua. Neither is comprehensive without the other.



49




The symbolism of the previous verse is carried on. The ring indicated the perfection of our own being on the synthesis of our actions. We have constituted ourselves as a positive phenomenon situated in a realm of infinite possibilities, with which we can make contact, as we choose. To understand this passage properly we must keep in mind the teaching of CCXX about the nature of existence. The appearance of the Khu, a series of marriages of Hadit and Nuit, lead to the congregation of what may be called a positive individuality of the Second Order which is ready to act as a unit, and to invoke Nuit.



50 - 51




Show the two forms in which this plan can be executed.



50




Acts of love under will may be directed to the creation of masterpieces. There are the ``palms'' whose flower delights, whose fruit nourishes our personality. Such acts may also be directed inwardly -- the mystical process as opposed to the magical, the dissolution of the personality regarded as imperfection. The text indicates a preference for the latter process. This is natural, the work at issue being the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, and this is primarily a work of dissolution rather than of further construction.



52

text

The symbolism is here particularly obscure. The son is presumably Ruach and the daughter Nephesch. The former seems to be described in respect of its capriciousness and the latter of its poor undevelopment in the matter of aspiration. They are to be furnished with the means of rhythmical motion. The defect of the goat of the Nephesch is its idleness, its lack of wings. They are then to be rendered capable of ordered movement within the element of the nature of the Angel.



54




The symbols of the heart and the serpent are retained to represent the Adept and the Angel, but the Angel is now shown as identical with the great Snake, Anata, which surrounds the Universe and by constantly devouring its own coils gradually restricts the manifested Cosmos.



55




The Adept enquires with regard to the process. (The answer is apparently given in verse 65.) Despite the perfection of his rapture, the Adept appears to recognise that it is only so to speak an oasis in the desert. He extends his aspiration from the personal problem of his own sorrow to the contemplation of the Universal Sorrow.



56




The Adept appears to be overwhelmed by this consideration. It seems to him theoretically impossible to ``undo the wrong of the Beginning.'' This means that he has now understood the doctrine that the beginning (Berashith) is necessarily of the nature of error. Any separateness, any sense of finitude represents imperfection. It is a matter of plain logic that it should be so. He has of course succeeded in making his personal imperfection the means of attaining self-consciousness and thereby a spiritual state beyond anything of which he seemed capable. But his attainment having made him aware of the whole Universe and identified it with the conditions of his own sublime being he experiences the Trance of Sorrow.

It must be borne in mind that Qabalastically the Adept has no special cognisance of any Sephira above Tiphereth until he has attained thereto. This postulate is promulgated simply for convenience of calculation. In actual practice it is of course usual for the aspirant to be imbued by wiser motives than those determined by his recognition of his personal imperfections.

The point of the passage is to show how the attainment, instead of being as the postulate was apt to image the completion of the Great Work, may extend his conception of that work from a personal to an impersonal sphere. The first lesson that he learn in fact is that he must apply himself immediately to fitting himself to enter the Third Order, now that at least he is admitted to the Second. I quote Liber 418, the 14th Aethyr. It states the doctrine with singular insight and eloquence.



57




This verse throws light on the three previous. The Angel is now clearly understood as only concerned with the Adept as such in total fraction of his whole function. He is no longer the goal and crown of the Adept. That work being accomplished it is seen in proper perspective. The Adept begins to apprehend the nature of the Angel as he is in himself, i.e., as he is a relation of the Macrocosm. Now in the particular case of 666, the Angel being Aiwass, the pertinence of verses 54 - 56, which were at first sight rather puzzling, as indicating a new and unfamiliar aspect of the Angel, is seen to be absolute. Aiwass is the Logos of the Aeon, his number being 93, like that of Thelma the word of the Law. 666 is the instrument of which he and the Secret Chiefs of the AA prepared and employed as an instrument by which the Law might be proclaimed. 666 is the 4th number of Sol whose House is Leo, the Lion, which again is the Sign of the man 666 (rising at his birth). This man therefore apprehending his Angel as the perfection of his own symbol likened him to a white (Kether) cat (lion) and, since he is the Logos, says to Him ``Thou criest.'' This is the link with verses 54 - 56, for 666 looks to Aiwass to undo the Wrong of the Beginning by the utterance of a Word. It seems, however, to the nature of the Word is altogether sublime. The roof of the Universe is a symbol of Kether, or of Kether with the Paths Aleph and Beth which issue from it forming symbolically a roof to the Tree of Life. ``There is none to answer Thee''. Above Kether is None or the Negative, the three kinds of Ain or Nothing. The complaint of 666 is therefore that this Word will find no echo save in the heart of Nuit.



58




Repeats the idea of verse 57. The ``lonely pillar'' represents Chokmah, the Creative Word, the Phallic Mercury, the Wisdom by which the world were created. The sea is Binah, the natural abode of Chokmah. The nature of Binah though indeed to understand is to be the great darkness. This is the conventional symbolism. Many examples of it are given in this and other sacred books. But see in particular Liber 418:

This is the Mystery of Babylon, the Mother of Abominations, and this is the mystery of her adulteries, for she hath yielded up herself to everything that liveth, and hath become a partaker in its mystery. And because she hath made herself the servant of each, therefore is she become the mistress of all. Not as yet canst thou comprehended her glory.

Beautiful art thou, O Babylon, and desirable, for thou hast given thyself to everything that liveth, and thy weakness hath subdued their strength. For in that union thou didst understand. Therefore art thou called Understanding, O Babylon Lady of the Night!

This is that which is written, ``O my God, in One last rapture let me attain to the Union with many.'' For she is Love, and her love is one, and she hath divided the one love into infinite loves, and each love is one, and equal with The One, and therefore is she passed ``from the assembly and the law and the enlightmmen# unto the anarchy of solitude and darkness. For ever thus must she veil brilliance of Her Self.''

O Babylon, Babylon, th# might Mother, that ridest upon the crowned beast, let me be drunken upon wine of thy fornications; let thy kisses wanton me unto death, that even I, thy cup-bearer, may understand.;tx

Now, through the ruddy glow of the cup, I may perceive far above, and infinitely great, the vision of Babylon. And the Beast whereon she rideth is the Lord of the City of the Pyramids, that I beheld in the fourteenth Aethyr. (Twelfth Aethyr)

O thou that art master of the fifty gates of Understanding, is not my mother a black woman? O thou that art master of the Pentagram, is not the egg of spirit a black egg? Here abideth terror, and the blind ache of the Soul and lo! even I, who am the sole light, a spark shut up, stand in the sign of Apophis and Typhon. (Fourteenth Aethyr).

I am the One beyond these all; and I bear the symbols of the mighty darkness.

There shall be a sigil as of a vast black brooding ocean of death and the central blaze of darkness, radiating its night upon all.

It shall swallow up that lesser darkness. But in that profound who shall answer: What is? Not I.

Not Thou, O God! (Liber VII VII:28 - 33.)

A principal symbol of Chokmah as the Phallic Mercury is the eye I quote from the vision of Him as observed in The Paris Working:

``He (Mercury) is essentially phallic, but he has a book in his hand, the Book which has one hundred and six pages. On the last page, as a colophon, is a four-pointed star, very luminous, and this is to be identified with the eye of Shiva, and the book pertains to the Grade of 7ø = 4;bx. The Sub-title of the Book is BIA, which is said to mean `force';th''.

In this aspect although Chokmah is the Word he sees and does not speak. The Word is in fact Act itself, rather than any intelligible utterance. The complaint of 666 seems then to be that neither by word nor deed can Aiwass undo the Wrong of the Beginning. Thelma which is itself an absolute symbol of Chokmah is beyond the comprehension of the Universe whose imperfection its function is to remedy.



59




The epithet `desolate' attracts the attention immediately. The word is derived from de-solare, de having an intensive force, so that desolate means ``utterly alone.'' The Hierophants have however been accustomed to communicate arcana in the presence of the profane by taking advantage of the similarity of sound between Sol and solus, especially in such parts of the declension as soli which is genitive singular of solus and dative singular of Sol, and solis, genitive singular of Sol and ablative plural of solus. The word desolate may therefore be intended to indicate the attribution of the Angel both to Kether (Solus) and to Tiphereth (Sol). The de may imply a reference to his relation with the adept through the Path of Daleth, Love, especially in view of the fact that His word Thelema, 93, contains the idea of Agape, 93.

The verse is a direct reply of Aiwass to 666 who was actually very disheartened at realising that the Great Work which he had accomplished, for all its raptures of his personal sorrow, was but the gateway of the Path of the stupendous task of rediscovering the Universe as he had done for himself. Aiwass explains that he has actually made the magical link necessary between Himself and the World through the man 666. My fainting under the sense of my responsibility, my feeling that my work for the world was foredoomed to failure, were due to my ignorance of what Aiwass had done.

He claims that he has filled me with ``a wine whose savour thou knowest not''. Wine is the universal symbol for spiritual ecstasy and the means of producing it. 666 does not know precisely how this ecstasy which throbs his life will affect others.



60




``The old gray sphere that rolls in the infinite Far-off'' is the earth; for the place into which the Adept is caught up to hold communion with his Angel is remote from the material Universe. Nevertheless this wine which may symbolise CCXX itself or even the poetry or the biography of the man 666 is guaranteed to posses the virtue of intoxicating the inhabitants of this planet.

The final symbol is strangely and even formidably vivid. The reference to the dogs, the blood, and the swift rider suggest the story of Jehu and Jezebel, but the allusion is not accurate or altogether intelligible. The general symbolism is nevertheless sufficiently clear. Cf., in the first place, III:40, V:8, Liber VII VII:15 - 16. Cf. also the uniform representation of the Adept as a maiden or harlot. For the swift rider Cf. IV:38 - 39 and the general symbolism of the Angel as bearer of the sacred lance or phallus and as mounted on a horse to indicate his swiftness and his power over the animal nature.

Blood is constantly used as a symbol of the flowing life the vehicle of animal energy.

The meaning of the verse is then that this spilth of the orgia of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel becomes the nourishment and the means of intoxication of the dogs, i.e. of animals of a lower stage of evolution. It is however, hinted that they contain in themselves the hidden godhead. See CCXX II:19. They have only to reverse their magical formula to attain the divinity. Note also the use of the word `lap' which suggests their thirst, eagerness and enjoyment, but also is connected with the symbolism of the number 111. This implies the `thick darkness' and the `sudden death' involved in the process of Initiation. There is also the whole doctrine of ``The Fool.'' Besides all this, the word `lap' is in the Angelic Language. (See The Equinox I:8, The 48 Calls or Keys.'') Because thus indicating that the limitation and sorrow of these dogs is due to their subservience to the faculty of reason. ``There is great danger in me; for who doth not understand these runes shall make a great miss. He shall fall down into the pit called Because, and there he shall perish with the dogs of Reason. Now a curse upon Because and his kin! May Because be accursed for ever! If Will stops and cries Why, invoking Because, then Will stops and does nought. If Power asks why, then is Power weakness. Also reason is a lie; for there is a factor infinite and unknown; and all their words are skew-wise. Enough of Because! Be he damned for a dog! (Liber CCXX II:27 - 33.)

The student should mediate upon these considerations until he has thoroughly assimilated them, severally and in combination. He should then construct a visual projection of the scene described in this verse. In this way he should eventually arrive at a direct intuitive apprehension of the way in which the life work of 666 may avail him to become partaker of the sacrament of initiation. Cf. also Liber VII III:16, 20 - 25 (241), 49 - 50, 56 - 60, IV:17 - 24, VII:47 - 49. I have emphasised the importance of this passage on the following consideration:

My own magical career began by my taking an oath to attain Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel on entirely selfish and personal grounds. I had, it is true, experienced the Trance of Sorrow, but the motive power in this Trance to formulate the oath was strictly confined  to my individual dissatisfaction with the [...] in which I found myself -- as far as I know without any intention of my own. In the course of preparing to carry out the Operation of the Sacred Magic of Abremelin the Mage, I discovered that my interests were inseparable from those of humanity at large. I however formulated my True Will in this way. My mission on earth was to teach men ``the next step,'' i.e. to induce them to devote themselves to attain the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel as opposed to more philosophically universal tasks such as the Hindu and Buddhist sages proposed. It was my own attainment that compelled me to extend the scope of my Work to the function of the Logos of the Aeon much as has been explained in the passages of this Chapter just discussed. The two most important works of strictly inspired origin which I have produced are LXV and VII and it now becomes clear that it is natural and necessary that this should be so. For Liber LXV covers every possible point that may arise in connection with the Grade of Adeptus Minor, and Liber VII of Magister Templi.



61 - 63




Beginning with verse 54 the subject of this Chapter and indeed of the whole book has undergone a process of modification. Perviously it had been concerned almost exclusively with the relation between the Angel and the man, the only variety being due to the division of the man for convenience into Nephesch, Ruach, and so on. Indeed if we identify the Angel with Yechidah it might be fair to say that Liber LXV is nothing but an extended comment upon Column LXVII of Liber 777. But now we reach firstly the consciousness of the Universe in its totality and then the peculiar relation of 666 with his fellow men. We have seen that his function in the life of the Planet has been defined, and it is consequently not unnatural that the Angel should indicate the actual physical condition of His future relations with 666.



61




The Angel declares Himself to be the Soul of the Desert. This remark may be taken generally as a reference to His attribution to the Path of Gimel which joins Kether and Tiphereth crossing the Abyss or Desert whose essential characteristic is the absence of a soul. See Liber 418, 10th Aethyr. Choronzon is defined as soullessness. Protean as are the forms of his appearance this quality is common to them all that there is no essence behind them. They are the Qliphoth (shells or husks), devoid of meaning or substance because mere categories uninformed by any individuality. Gimel incidentally means a camel `the ship of the desert'. Cf. Liber VII VII:22 - 23, and Liber 333 Chapter 73:

THE DEVIL, THE OSTRICH, AND THE ORPHAN CHILD.

Death rides the Camel of Initiation.;tx

Thou humped and stiff-necked one that groanest in Thine Asana, death will relieve thee!

Bite not, Zelator dear, but bide! Ten days didst thou go with water in they belly? Thou shalt go twenty more with a fire brand at they rump!

Ay! All thine aspiration is to death: death is the crown of all thine aspiration. Triple is the cord of silver moonlight; it shall hang thee, O Holy One, O hanged Man, O Camel-Termination-of-the-third-person-plural for thy multiplicity, thou Ghost of a Non-Ego!

Could but Thy mother behold thee, O thou Unt!

The Infinite Snake Anata that surroundeth the Universe is but the Coffin-Worm!

V.V.V.V.V. is the Motto of 666 in his Grade of Magister Templi. See Liber LXI 29 - 30. The function of the Magister Templi is to cause the desert to blossom by transmitting the Logos of the Aeon to those that are below the Abyss.

Apart from this general signification there is a personal allusion to 666 who is Alastor, the Spirit of Solitude. Foolish Rabbins have included this symbol in their list of demons. To the well-fed Pharisee as to the modern bourgeois nothing seems more frightful than solitude in which the mind is compelled to face reality. Such people fear nothing so much as the wilderness. The very legend of their tribe deals with the ``land of milk and honey'', the Promised Land, the wish phantasm of the sensual.

Observe that this is merely a matter of point of view. V:59 - 62. What is to the smug Jew with his Oedipus complex the extreme abomination is to us a ``land beyond honey and spice and all perfection,'' though we call it `Naught.' We consider them `weary ones' and their ideal of comfort and civilisation as `old grey land'. De gustibus non est disputandum. But there is a criterion in this case by which we can determine whether we or they have chosen the better part. For it is evident that no condition of existence can be really satisfactory if its joy is liable to be disturbed. The question is whether its nature is harmonious with that of the Universe. For stability depends thereon. We should find consequently that the ideal of the bourgeois is repose and his conception of the Cosmos static. Now we find that this is not the case. The Universe is a constant flux. To desire repose is thus contrary to Nature herself. We accept this fact and define the Black Brothers directly as those who seek to check the course of events. The bourgeois is for us therefore a clumsy ignorant amateur Black Magician. Our idea of joy is unchecked free motion, and the stability of our joy is assured by our very conception of Yesod. We find the change the more fixed we are in our joy. (Refer to the ?th and 3rd Aethyrs, and several similar passages in the Holy Books.) We are guaranteed by the nature of things in themselves whereas the bourgeois is constantly upset by such trivial matters as the efflux of time and the rate of exchange.

The hardships of desert life and in particular its psychological horror indicate the correspondence emphatically.

Apart from this reference to Alastor the word again recalls the historic events of the 3rd of December, 1909 E.V. at Bou Saada when 666 ceremonial underwent the Initiation into the Grade of Magister Templi. This points the allusion. From this it is evident that the import of these verses is entirely practical. They are not to be taken in a mystical sense, but as definitely predicting a Great Magical Retirement, to be undertaken by 666 at some period in the future. There do not seem to be any clear indications as to the date of this journey, but its conditions are laid down with considerable precision and the actual place the `consummation' is described in terms which should leave no room for doubt.

The student should refer to the accounts of such events as the finding of the Villa Caldarezzo if he would learn to interpret the instructions communicated by means of visions and oracles.

I have always taken this passage in this sense. I have expected to find sooner or later that my circumstances were such that afterwards it would be found to have been a precise and exact fulfilment of this prediction. At the moment of writing this Comment some such journey is actually in contemplation and it may be part of the preparation for that journey that I should have been moved to devote my energies to the analysis of this Book. It is therefore immediately pertinent to my own work and should be exceedingly useful in the most practical way to the student to trace out as minutely as possible the probable bearings of the symbolism of the text.

In view however of the extreme importance of this Great Magical Retirement it would be in the last degree improper to discuss it coram populo while yet inchoate. Moreover it is a well-known characteristic of all true prediction that while some of the allusions should be intelligible at the time of utterance so that its general bearing should be unmistakeable there should be other passages altogether beyond the possibility of interpretation until the occurence of the event foretold. In Macbeth and Part II of Henry VI, Act I, Scene 4 and Act IV, Scene 1, lines 30 - 35, and Act V, Scene II, lines 67 - 69 illustrate this condition. The student is also referred to the interpretation and fulfilment of CCXX III:47. (Put in a short account.) No amount of investigation would have enabled me to say in what sense the words of the prediction would justify themselves.

In the case of the Great Magical Retirement indicated in these verses the data are singularly precise. Even in the matter of the effect of the Work, verse 63, there are a number of unusual expressions -- `bedecked', `anointed', `Consummation' -- which are at present and must be, until the event, perfectly obscure. The verse is superficially the maximum of vagueness. These expressions might apply to almost any form of intercourse between Aiwass and the Beast. When the Retirement is a matter of history it will appear that these express with the almost mathematical precision the nature of the orgia, and that no other words exist which could replace them adequately. This circumstance should be irrefutable proof to those who understand anything of the laws of Nature expecially in regard to the doctrine of probability that Aiwass possesses the power of foretelling future events and bringing them to pass in conformity with His plans. The vagueness of the expression at present is evidently an essential part of this proof. For if I were able to interpret them with certainty in the striking and convincing way which time will permit me to do, I should be able by the exercise of prudence to arrange for the fulfilment of the prediction and thereby destroy its evidential character.

This paragraph was dictated by me to Frater O.P.V. on the evening of 17th July, 1923, E.V. (In fact 10-10.20 p.m. Tuesday, 17th July, 1923, at the Hotel Au Souffle du Zephir, Marsa Plage, Tunisia). (An XIX, Sol in 24ø Cancer, Luna in 14ø Virgo). The passage will be shown for confirmation to Eddie.



64




The language of this verse is curiously extravagant yet curiously exact. The impression is that the Angel is doing violence to the language by compelling ambiguous glyphs to assume definite form.

Refer to III:12 and my Comment upon them. Verses 64 - 65 apparently fix the connotation of the word `consummation' in verse 63.

It is difficult to assign any exact reason for my impression, but that impression is that the love will extend no more as hitherto merely to Tiphereth (Liber LXV) or to Binah (Liber VII) but to Kether and the Ain Soph (Limitless). The endless One seemed to be Kether. At least, I cannot think of any alternative. It may legitimately be described as endless on account of its unity. But in that case what meaning can we assign to `permitted end'? The suggestion is that there are really two ends, one permitted, i.e., arbitrarily assigned, the other inherent in its nature. The reference might then be either to Malkuth or to the Ain.

Alternative `end' may not represent `finis' but 
The permitted end may be paraphrased the lawful goal.

Again `endless' might be taken as equivalent to objectless. The canon of perfection of will is given in CCXX, I, 44: -- For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is in every way perfect.''

Kether as unity may be described as endless because it is itself a result, a product of `love under will,' the resolution of the Dyad.

The Universe is compared to a `girdle for the midst of the ray of our love,' as if that ray were a limitless line of light. The totality of manifested existence would then be the boundary of the simple) central)
section of this love.

This state of things will arise when each of the two lovers has become identified with the infinite idea of which he is naturally a (centralized or constricted) particular case. In other words, the Angel and the Adept will each have attained to self-annihilation or dissolution in the being of Nuit and Hadit respectively, and thus the point of junction, the bridal chamber, will be in the midst of the Universe of the finite phenomena precipitated by the union of the infinite complementaries. The Universe will in fact be determined by the ray which represents the will to love of these two. The phenomenon is therefore parallel with that of the fundamental act of creation. This formula is so profound and important that it must be apprehended and assimilated by study of the theories concerning it in CCXX before the student can expect to attach any truly definite meaning to the ideas which I have endeavoured to translate into the language of intellectual concepts.

Besides all this there is undoubtedly a Neschamic or Samadhic meaning to verse 64 which is not in any way susceptible of intellectual interpretation unless by a Magister Templi who has made a special effort to construct a language capable of being the Abyss between Neschamah and Ruach, between the Samadhic and the normal conditions of consciousness.



65




The conclusion -- and be it remembered that this whole chapter concerns itself with the expression of the Unconscious Will -- is that the 'Consummation' of the K. and C. of the H.G.A. whose connotation is fixed by verse 64 is the complete and irrevocable absorption of the human consciousness of the Adept in that of his H.G.A. The symbol of the heart i.e. of the passive passionate life of the Adept is consumed (consummation) in the divine and eternal life represented by the serpent. The serpent is a vibration of energy whose complementary curves appear as death and life. It is the change of direction at the solstitial points of the curves which produce the illusion of stasis and therefore invite nomenclature on the part of those who fail to understand the continuity of the line, seeing as they do only a minute arc of it. The idea is cognate when the serpent is taken as in verse 54. Whatever glyph be chosen the thought is the same. The consummation implies the transformation of the reverberatory vibration of human life into the continuous serpentine spiral vibration of that pure energy which is not assuaged by its results, which neither lusts for its results nor is assuaged by them.