LIBER SAMEKH

                        Theurgia Goetia Summa

                       (CONGRESSUS CUM DAEMONE)

                           sub figura DCCC

   Being the Ritual employed by the Beast 666 for the Attainment of
 the Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel during the
 Semester of His performance of the Operation of the Sacred Magick of
 ABRAMELIN THE MAGE.
   (Prepared An XVII Sun in Virgo at the Abbey of Thelema in Cephalaedium
 by the Beast 666 in service to FRATER PROGRADIOR.)
    OFFICIAL PUBLICATION of A: A: Class D for the Grade of Adeptus Minor.


                               POINT

                                 I

                     EVANGELII TEXTUS REDACTUS

 The Invocation.

 Magically restored, with the significance of the

                          BARBAROUS NAMES

 Etymologically or Qabalistically determined and paraphrased in English.

 Section A.                                          The Oath.

  1.  Thee I invoke, the Bornless One.
  2.  Thee, that didst create the Earth and the Heavens.
  3.  Thee, that didst create the Night and the Day.
  4.  Thee, that didst create the darkness and the Light.
  5.  Thou art ASAR UN-NEFER ("Myself made Perfect"):
        Whom no man hath seen at any time.
  6.  Thou art IA-BESZ ("the Truth in Matter").
  7.  Thou art IA-APOPHRASZ ("the Truth in Motion").
  8.  Thou hast distinguished between the Just and the Unjust.
  9.  Thou didst make the Female and the Male.
 10.  Thou didst produce the Seeds and the Fruit.
 11.  Thou didst form Men to love one another, and to hate one
        another.

 Section Aa.

 1.  I am ANKH - F - N - KHONSU hy Prophet, unto Whom Thou didst
       commit Thy Mysteries, the Ceremonies of KHEM.
 2.  Thou didst produce the moist and the dry, and that which
       nourisheth all created Life.
 3.  Hear Thou Me, for I am the Angel of PTAH - APO - PHRASZ - RA
       (vide the Rubric): this is Thy True Name, handed down to the
       Prophets of KHEM.


 Section B.                                            Air.

 Hear Me: ---

 AR                      "O breathing, flowing Sun!"
 ThIAF1                  "O Sun IAF! O Lion-Serpent Sun, The
                           Beast that whirlest forth, a thunder-
                           bolt, begetter of Life!"
 RhEIBET                 "Thou that flowest!  Thou that goest!"
 A-ThELE-BER-SET         "Thou Satan-Sun Hadith that goest
                           without Will!"
 A                       "Thou Air!  Breath!  Spirit!  Thou
                           without bound or bond!"
 BELAThA                 "Thou Essence, Air Swift-streaming,
                           Elasticity!"
 ABEU                    "Thou Wanderer, Father of All!"
 EBEU                    "Thou Wanderer, Spirit of All!"
 PhI-ThETA-SOE           "Thou Shining Force of Breath!  Thou
                           Lion-Serpent Sun!  Thou Saviour,
                           save!"
 IB                      "Thou Ibis, secret solitary Bird, inviolate
                           Wisdom, whose Word in Truth,
                           creating the World by its Magick!"
 ThIAF                   "O Sun IAF!  O Lion-Serpent Sun, The
                           Beas that whirlest forth, a thunder-
                           bolt, begetter of Life!"

 (The conception is of Air, glowing, inhabited by a Solar-Phallic
 Bird, "the Holy Ghost", of a Mercurial Nature.)
 Hear me, and make all Spirits subject unto Me; so that every
 Spirit of the Firmament and of the Ether: upon the Earth and
 under the Earth, on dry land and in the water; of Whirling Air,
 and of rushing Fire, and every Spell and Scourge of God may be
 obedient unto Me.

 ----------------

 1.  The letter F is used to represent the Hebrew Vau and the Greek
 Digamma; its sound lies between those of the English long o and long oo,
 as in Rope and Tooth.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------


 Section C.                                         Fire.

 I invoke Thee, the Terrible and Invisible God: Who dwellest in
 the Void Place of the Spirit: ---

 AR-O-GO-GO-RU-ABRAO     "Thou spiritual Sun!  Satan, Thou
                           Eye, Thou Lust!  Cry aloud!  Cry
                           aloud!  Whirl the Wheel, O my
                           Father, O Satan, O Sun!"
 SOTOU                   "Thou, the Saviour!"
 MUDORIO                 "Silence!  Give me Thy Secret!"
 PhALARThAO              "Give me suck, Thou Phallus, Thou
                           Sun!"
 OOO                     "Satan, thou Eye, thou Lust!"
                         "Satan, thou Eye, thou Lust!"
                         "Satan, thou Eye, thou Lust!"
 AEPE                    "Thou self-caused, self-determined,
                           exalted, Most High!"

 The Bornless One.  (Vide supra).
 (The conception is of Fire, glowing, inhabited by a Solar-Phallic
 Lion of a Uranian nature.)
 Hear Me, and make all Spirits subject unto Me: so that every
 Spirit of the Firmament and of the Ether: upon the Earth and
 under the Earth: on dry Land and in the Water: of Whirling
 Air, and of rushing Fire, and every Spell and Scourge of God
 may be obedient unto Me.


 Section D.                                        Water.

 Hear Me: ---

 RU-ABRA-IAF1            "Thou the Wheel, thou the Womb,
                          that containeth the Father IAF!"
 MRIODOM                 "Thou the Sea, the Abode!"
 BABALON-BAL-BIN-ABAFT   "Babalon!  Thou Woman of Whoredom"

 ----------------

 1. See, for the formula of IAF, or rather FIAOF, Book 4 Part III,
 Chapter V.  The form FIAOF will be found preferable in practice.


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                         "Thou, Gate of the Great God ON!
                           Thou Lady of the Understanding of
                           the Ways!"
 ASAL-ON-AI              "Hail Thou, the unstirred!  Hail,
                           sister and bride of ON, of the God
                           that is all and is none, by the Power
                           of Eleven!"
 APhEN-IAF               "Thou Treasure of IAO!"
 I                       "Thou Virgin twin-sexed!  Thou Secret
                           Seed!  Thou inviolate Wisdom!"
 PhOTETh                 "Abode of the Light .................
 ABRASAX                 "......of the Father, the Sun, of
                           Hadith, of the spell of the Aeon
                           of Horus!"
 AEOOU                   "Our Lady of the Western Gate of
                           Heaven!"
 ISChURE                 "Mighty art Thou!"

 Mighty and Bornless One!  (Vide Supra)
 (The conception is of Water, glowing, inhabited by a Solar-Phallic
 Dragon-Serpent, of a Neptunian nature.)
 Hear Me: and make all Spirits subject unto Me: so that every
 Spirit of the Firmament and of the Ether: upon the Earth and
 under the Earth: on dry Land and in the Water: of Whirling Air,
 and of rushing Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God may be
 obedient unto Me.

 Section E.                                        Earth.

 I invoke Thee: ---

 MA                      "O Mother!  O Truth!"
 BARRAIO                 "Thou Mass!"1
 IOEL                    "Hail, Thou that art!"
 KOThA                   "Thou hollow one!"

 ----------------

 1. "Mass", in the sense of the word which is used by physicists.  The
 impossibility of defining it will not deter the intrepid initiate (in view of
 the fact that the fundamental conception is beyond the normal categories
 of reason.)


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 AThOR-e-BAL-O           "Thou Goddess of Beauty and Love,
                           whom Satan, beholding, desireth!"
 ABRAFT                  "The Fathers, male-female, desire
                           Thee!"

 (The conception of of Earth, glowing, inhabited by a Solar-Phallic
 Hippopotamus1 of a Venereal nature.)
 Hear Me: and make all Spirits subject unto Me: so that every
 Spirit of the Firmament, and of the Ether: upon The Earth and
 under the Earth: on dry land and in the Water: of Whirling Air,
 and of rushing Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God may be
 obedient unto Me.


 Section F.                                        Spirit.

 Hear Me:

 AFT                     "Male-Female Spirits!"
 ABAFT                   "Male-Female Sires!"
 BAS-AUMGN               "Ye that are Gods, going forth, uttering
                           AUMGN.  (The Word that goeth
                           from
                           (A) Free Breath.
                           (U) through Willed Breath.
                           (M) and stopped Breath.
                           (GN) to Continuous Breath.
                           thus symbolizing the whole course of
                           spiritual life.  A is the formless Hero;
                           U is the six-fold solar sound of physical
                           life, the triangle of Soul being
                           entwined with that of Body; M is the
                           silence of "death"; GN is the nasal
                           sound of generation & knowledge.
 ISAK                    "Identical Point!"
 SA-BA-FT                "Nuith!  Hadith!  Ra-Hoor-Khuit!"
                         "Hail, Great Wild Beast!"
                            "Hail, IAO!"

 ----------------

 1.  Sacred to AHAThOOR.  The idea is that of the Female conceived
 as invulnerable, reposeful, of enormous swallowing capacity etc.


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 Section Ff.

   1.  This is the Lord of the Gods:
   2.  This is the Lord of the Universe:
   3.  This is He whom the Winds fear.
   4.  This is He, Who having made Voice by His commandment
 is Lord of all Things; King, Ruler and Helper.  Hear Me, and
 make all Spirits subject unto Me: so that every Spirit of the Firmament
 and of the Ether: upon the Earth and under the Earth:
 on dry Land and in the Water: of Whirling Air, and of rushing
 Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God may be obedient unto Me.


 Section G.                                        Spirit.

 Hear Me:

 IEOU                    "Indwelling Sun of Myself"
 PUR                     "Thou Fire!  Thou Sixfold Star initiator
                           compassed about with Force and Fire!"
 IOU                     "Indwelling Soul of Myself"
 PUR                     (Vide Supra)
 IAFTh                   "Sun-lion Serpent, hail!  All Hail, thou
                           Great Wild Beast, thou I A O!"
 IAEO                    "Breaths of my soul, breaths of mine
                           Angel."
 IOOU                    "Lust of my soul, lust of mine Angel!"
 ABRASAX                 (Vide Supra).
 SABRIAM                 "Ho for the Sangraal!  Ho for the Cup
                           of Babalon!  Ho for mine Angel
                           pouring Himself forth within my
                           Soul!"
 OO                      "The Eye!  Satan, my Lord!  The Lust
                           of the goat!"
 FF                      "Mine Angel!  Mine initiator!  Thou
                           one with me --- the Sixfold Star!"
 AD-ON-A-I1              "My Lord!  My secret self beyond self,
                           Hadith, All Father!  Hail, ON, thou
                           Sun, thou Life of Man, thou Fivefold
                           Sword of Flame!  Thou Goat exalted
                           upon Earth in Lust, thou Snake
                           extended upon Earth in Life!  Spirit
                           most holy!  Seed most Wise!  Innocent
                           Babe.  Inviolate Maid!  Begetter
                           of Being!  Soul of all Souls!  Word
                           of all Words, Come forth, most
                           hidden Light!"
 EDE                     "Devour thou me!"
 EDU                     "Thou dost devour Me!"
 ANGELOS TON ThEON       "Thou Angel of the Gods!"
 ANLALA                  "Arise thou in Me, free flowing, Thou
                           who art Naught, who art Naught, and
                           utter thy Word!"
 LAI                     "I also am Naught!  I Will Thee!  I
                           behold Thee!  My nothingness!"
 GAIA                    "Leap up, thou Earth!"
                           (This is also an agonising appeal to the
                           Earth, the Mother; for at this point
                           of the ceremony the Adept should be
                           torn from his mortal attachments, and

 ----------------

 1. In Hebrew, ADNI, YNDA, 65.  The Gnostic Initiates transliterated it to
 imply their own secret formulae; we follow so excellent an example.  ON
 is an Arcanum of Arcana; its significance is taught, gradually, in the
 O.T.O.  Also AD is the paternal formula, Hadit; ON is its complement
 NUIT; the final Yod signifies "mine" etymologically and essentially the
 Mercurial (transmitted) hermaphroditic virginal seed --- The Hermit of the
 Taro --- The use of the name is therefore to invoke one's own inmost
 secrecy, considered as the result of the conjunction of Nuit and Hadit.  If
 the second A is included, its import is to affirm the operation of the Holy
 Ghost and the formulation of the Babe in the Egg, which precedes the
 appearance of the Hermit.


                               -272-

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                           die to himself in the orgasm of his
                           operation.1)
 AEPE                    "Thou Exalted One!  It (i.e. the spritual
                           'semen', the Adept's secret ideas,
                           drawn irresistibly from their 'Hell'2
                           by the love of his Angel) leaps up; it
                           leaps forth!3
 DIATHARNA THORON        "Lo! the out-splashing of the seeds of
                           Immortality"

 Section Gg.                                       The Attainment.

 1.  I am He! the Bornless Spirit! having sight in the feet:
       Strong, and the Immortal Fire!
 2.  I am He! the Truth!
 3.  I am He! Who hate that evil should be wrought in the
       World!
 4.  I am He, that lighteneth and thundereth!
 5.  I am He, from whom is the Shower of the Life of Earth!
 6.  I am He, whose mouth ever flameth!
 7.  I am He, the Begetter and Manifester unto the Light!
 8.  I am He, The Grace of the Worlds!
 9.  "The Heart Girt with a Serpent" is my name!


 Section H.                                  The "Charge to the Spirit".

 Come thou forth, and follow me: and make all Spirits subject
 unto Me so that every Spirit of the Firmament, and of the Ether,
 upon the Earth and under the Earth: on dry Land, or in the
 Water: of Whirling Air or of rushing Fire, and every Spell and
 scourge of God, may be obedient unto me!

 Section J.                           The Proclamation of the Beast 666.

   IAF:  SABAF4
       Such are the Words!

 ----------------

 1. A thorough comprehension of Psycho-analysis will contribute notably
 to the proper appreciation of this Ritual.

 2. It is said among men that the word Hell deriveth from the word
 "helan", to hele or conceal, in the tongue of the Anglo-Saxons.  That is,
 it is the concealed place, which since all things are in thine own self,
 is the unconscious.  Liber CXI (Aleph) cap Ds

 3. But compare the use of the same word in section C.

 4. See explanation in Point II.


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                              POINT

                               II

                   ARS CONGRESSUS CUM DAEMONE.

 SECTION A.     Let the Adeptus Minor be standing in this circle on the
            square of Tiphereth, armed with his Wand and Cup; but let him
            perform the Ritual throughout in his Body of Light.  He may burn
            the Cakes of Light, or the Incense of Abramelin; he may be
            prepared by Liber CLXXV, the reading of Liber LXV, and by the
            practices of Yoga.  He may invoke Hadit by "... wine and strange
            drugs" if he so will.1  He prepares the circle by the usual
            formulae of Banishing and Consecration, etc.

               He recites Section A as a rehearsal before His Holy Guardian
            Angel of the attributes of that Angel.  Each phrase must be
            realized with full concentration of force, so as to make Samadhi
            as perfectly as possible upon the truth proclaimed.

 Line 1        He identifies his Angel with the Ain Soph, and the Kether
            thereof; one formulation of Hadit in the boundless Body of Nuith.

 Line 2,3,4    He asserts that His Angel has created (for the purpose of
            self-realization through projection in conditioned Form) three
            pairs of opposites: (a) The Fixed and the Volatile; (b) The
            Unmanifested and the Manifest; and (c) the Unmoved and the Moved.
            Otherwise, the Negative and the Positive in respect of Matter,
            Mind and Motion.

 Line 5        He acclaims his Angel as "Himself Made Perfect"; adding that
            this Individuality is inscrutable in inviolable.  In the Neophyte
            Ritual of

 ----------------
 1. Any such formula should be used only when the adept has full
 knowledge based on experience of the management of such matters.


                              -274-
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           G: D: (As it is printed in Equinox I, II, for the old aeon) the
           Hierophant is the perfected Osiris, who brings the candidate, the
           natural Osiris, to identity with himself.  But in the new Aeon
           the Hierophant is Horus (Liber CCXX, I, 49) therefore the
           Candidate will be Horus too.  What then is the formula of the
           initiation of Horus?  It will no longer be that of the Man,
           through Death.  It will be the natural growth of the Child.  His
           experiences will no more be regarded as catastrophic.  Their
           hieroglyph is the Fool: the innocent and impotent Harpocrates
           Babe becomes the Horus Adult by obtaining the Wand.  "Der reine
           Thor" seizes the Sacred Lance.  Bacchus becomes Pan.  The Holy
           Guardian Angel is the Unconscious Creature Self --- the Spiritual
           Phallus.  His knowledge and conversation contributes occult
           puberty.  It is therefore advisable to replace the name Asar Un-
           nefer by that of Ra-Hoor-Khuit at the outset, and by that of
           one's own Holy Guardian Angel when it has been communicated.

 Line 6       He hails Him as BESZ, the Matter that destroys
           and devours Godhead, for the purpose of the
           Incarnation of any God.

 Line 7       He hails Him as APOPHRASZ, the Motion that destroys and
           devours Godhead, for the purpose of the Incarnation of any God.
           The combined action of these two DEVILS is to allow the God upon
           whom they prey to enter into enjoyment of existence through the
           Sacrament of dividual "Life" (Bread --- the flesh of BESZ) and
           "Love" (Wine --- the blood or venom of AOPHRASZ).

 Line 8       He acclaims His Angel as having "eaten of the Fruit of the
           Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil"; otherwise, having become
           wise (in the Dyad, Chokmah) to apprehend the formula of
           Equilibrium which is now His own, being able to apply Himself
           accurately to His self-appointed environment.

 Line 9       He acclaims His Angel as having laid down the Law of Love as
           the Magical formula of the Universe, that He may resolve the
           phenomenal again into its noumenal phase by uniting any two
           opposites in ecstasic passion.

 Line 10      He acclaims His Angel as having appointed that this formula of
           Love should effect not only the dissolution of the separateness
           of the Lovers into His own impersonal Godhead, but their co-
           ordination in a "Child" quintessentialized from its parents to
           constitute a higher order of Being than theirs, so that each
           generation is an alchemical progress towards perfection in the
           direction of successive complexities.  As Line 9 asserts
           Involution, Line 10 asserts Evolution.

 Line 11      He acclaims His Angel as having devised this method of self-
           realization; the object of Incarnation is to obtain its reactions
           to its relations with other incarnated Beings and to observe
           theirs with each other.

                            ----------


 Section Aa.

 Line 1       The Adept asserts his right to enter into conscious
           communication with His Angel, on the ground that that Angel has
           Himself taught him the Secret Magick by which he may make the
           proper link.  "Mosheh" is M H, the formation in Jechidah, Chiah,
           Neshamah, Ruach, --- The Sephiroth from Kether to Yesod --- since
           45 is S 1-9 while Sh, 300, is S 1-24, which superadds to these
           Nine an extra Fifteen numbers.  (See in Liber D,
           the meanings and correspondences of 9, 15, 24, 45, 300, 345.)
              45 is moreover A D M, MDA, man.  "Mosheh" is thus the name of
           man as a God-concealing form.  But in the Ritual let the Adept
           replace this "Mosheh" by his own motto as Adeptus Minor.  For
           "Ishrael" let him prefer his own Magical Race, according to the
           obligations of his Oaths to Our Holy Order!  (The Beast 666
           Himself used "Ankh-f-n-Khonsu" and "Khem" in this section.)

 Line 2       The Adept reminds his Angel that He has created That One
           Substance of which Hermes hath written in the Table of Emerald,
           whose virtue is to unite in itself all opposite modes of Being,
           thereby to serve as a Talisman charged with the Spiritual Energy
           of Existence, an Elixir or Stone composed of the physical basis
           of Life.  This Commemoration is placed between the two personal
           appeals to the Angel, as if to claim privilege to partake of this
           Eucharist which createth, sustaineth and redeemeth all things.

 Line 3       He now asserts that he is himself the "Angel" or messenger of
           his Angel; that is, that he is a mind and body whose office is to
           receive and transmit the Word of his Angel.  He hails his Angel
           not only as "un-nefer" the Perfection of "Asar" himself as a man,
           but as Ptah-Apophrasz-Ra, the identity (Hadit) wrapped in the
           Dragon (Nuit) and thereby manifested as a Sun (Ra-Hoor-Khuit).
           The "Egg" (or Heart) "girt with a Serpent" is a cognate symbol;
           the idea is thus expressed later in the ritual.  (See Liber LXV.
           which expands this to the uttermost.)

 Section B    The Adept passes from contemplation to action in the sections
           now following B to Gg.  He is to travel astrally around the
           circle, making the appropriate pentagrams, sigils, and signs.
           His direction is widdershins.  He thus makes three curves, each
           covering three- fourths of the circle.  He should give the sign
           of the Enterer on passing the Kiblah, or Direction of Boleskine.
           This picks up the force naturally radiating from that point1
           and projects it in the direction of the path of the Magician.
           The sigils are those given in the Equinox Vol. I, No. 7, Plate X
           outside the square;
           the signs those shewn in Vol. I, No. 2, Plate "The Signs of the
           Grades".  In these invocations he should expand his girth and his
           stature to the utmost2, assuming the form and the consciousness
           of the elemental god of the quarter.  After this, he begins to
           vibrate the "Barbarous Names" of the Ritual.

              Now let him not only fill his whole being to the uttermost
           with the force of the Names; but let him formulate his Will,
           understood thoroughly as the dynamic aspect of his Creative Self,
           in an appearance symbolically apt, I say not in the form of a Ray
           of Light, of a Fiery Sword, or of aught save that bodily Vehicle
           of the Holy Ghost which is sacred to BAPHOMET, by its virtue that
           concealeth the Lion and the Serpent that His Image may appear
           adorably upon the Earth for ever.

              Let then the Adept extend his Will beyond the Circle in this
           imagined Shape and let it radiate with the Light proper to the
           element invoked, and let each Word issue along the Shaft with
           passionate impulse, as if its voice gave command thereto that it
           should thrust itself leapingly forward.  Let also each Word
           accumulate authority, so that the Head of the Shaft may plunge
           twice as far for the Second Word as for the First, and Four Times
           for

 ----------------

 1. This is an assumption based on Liber Legis II, 78 and III, 34.

 2. Having experience of success in the practices of Liber 536, BATRAXO-
 "RENOBOOKOSMOMAXIA.


                              -278-

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        the Third as the Second, and thus to the end.  Moreover, let the
        Adept fling forth his whole consciousness thither.  Then at the
        final Word, let him bring rushing back his Will within himself,
        steadily streaming, and let him offer himself to its point, as
        Artemis to PAN, that this perfectly pure concentration of the
        Element purge him thoroughly, and possess him with its passion.

           In this Sacrament being wholly at one with that Element, let
        the Adept utter the Charge "Hear me, and make", etc. with strong
        sense that this unity with that quarter of the Universe confers
        upon him the fullest freedom and privilege appurtenant thereto.

           Let the Adept take note of the wording of the Charge.  The
        "Firmament" is the Ruach, the "mental plane"; it is the realm of
        Shu, or Zeus, where revolves the Wheel of the Gunas, the Three
        forms1 of Being.  The Aethyr is the

----------------

1. They correspond to the Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt of Alchemy; to
Sattvas, Rajas, and Tamas in the Hindu system; and are rather modes of
action than actual qualities even when conceived as latent.  They are the
apparatus of communication between the planes; as such, they are
conventions.  There is no absolute validity in any means of mental
apprehension; but unless we make these spirits of the Firmament subject
unto us by establishing right relation (within the possible limits) with the
Universe, we shall fall into error when we develop our new instrument of
direct understanding. It is vital that the Adept should train his intellectual
faculties to tell him the truth, in the measure of their capacity.  To despise
the mind on account of its limitations is the most disastrous blunder; it is
the common cause of the calamities which strew so many shores with the
wreckage of the Mystic Armada.  Bigotry, Arrogance, Bewilderment, all
forms of mental and moral disorder, so often observed in people of great
spiritual attainment, have brought the Path itself into discredit; almost all
such catastrophes are due to trying to build the Temple of the Spirit
without proper attention to the mental laws of structure and the physical
necessities of foundation.  The mind must be brought to its utmost pitch
of perfection, but according to its own internal properties; one cannot feed
a microscope on mutton chops.  It must be regarded as a mechanical


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        "akasha", the "Spirit", the Aethyr or physics, which is the
        framework on which all forms are founded; it receives, records
        and transmits all impulses without itself suffering mutation
        thereby.  The "Earth" is the sphere wherein the operation of
        these "fundamental" and aethyric forces appears to perception.
        "Under the Earth" is the world of those phenomena which inform
        those perceived projections, and determine their particular
        character.  "Dry land" is the place of dead "material things",
        dry (i.e. unknowable) because unable to act on our minds.
        "Water" is the vehicle whereby we feel such things; "air" their
        menstruum wherein these feelings are mentally apprehended.  It is
        called "whirling" because of the instability of thought, and the
        fatuity of reason, on which we are yet dependent for what we call
        "life".  "Rushing Fire" is the world in which wandering thought
        burns up to swift-darting Will.  These four stages explain how
        the non-Ego is transmuted into the

----------------

(footnote continued from page 279)
instrument of knowledge, independent of the personality of its possessor.
One must treat it exactly as one treats one's electroscope or one's eyes; one
influence of one's wishes.  A physician calls in a colleague to attend to his
own family, knowing that personal anxiety may derange his judgment.  A
microscopist who trusts his eyes when his pet theory is at stake may falsify
the facts, and find too late that he has made a fool of himself.

   In the case of initiations itself, history is scarred with the wounds
inflicted by this Dagger.  It reminds us constantly of the danger of relying
upon the intellectual faculties.  A judge must know the law in every point,
and be detached from personal prejudices, and incorruptible, or iniquity will
triumph.  Dogma, with persecution, delusion, paralysis of progress, and
many another evil, as its satraps, has always established a tyranny when
Genius has proclaimed it.  Islam making a bonfire of written Wisdom,
and Haeckel forging biological evidence; physicists ignorant of radioactivity
disputing the conclusions of geology, and theologians impatient of truth
struggling against the tide of thought; all such must perish at the hands of
their own error in making their minds, internally defective or externally
deflected, the measure of the Universe.


                              -280-
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        Ego.  A "Spell" of God is any form of consciousness, and a
        "Scourge" any form of action.

           The Charge, as a whole, demands for the Adept the control of
        every detail of the Universe which His Angel has created as a
        means of manifesting Himself to Himself.  It covers command of
        the primary projection of the Possible in individuality, in the
        antithetical artifice which is the device of Mind, and in a
        balanced triplicity of modes or states of being whose
        combinations constitute the characteristics of Cosmos.  It
        includes also a standard of structure, a rigidity to make
        reference possible.  Upon these foundations of condition which
        are not things in themselves, but the canon to which things
        conform, is builded the Temple of Being, whose materials are
        themselves perfectly mysterious, inscrutable as the Soul, and
        like the Soul imagining themselves by symbols which we may feel,
        perceive, and adapt to our use without ever knowing the whole
        Truth about them.  The Adept sums up all these items by claiming
        authority over every form of expression possible to Existence,
        whether it be a "spell" (idea) or a "scourge" (act) of "God",
        that is, of himself.  The Adept must accept every "spirit", every
        "spell", every "scourge", as part of his environment, and make
        them all "subject to" himself; that is, consider them as
        contributory causes of himself.  They have made him what he is.
        They correspond exactly to his own faculties.  They are all ---
        ultimately --- of equal importance.  The fact that he is what he
        is proves that each item is equilibrated.  The impact of each new
        impression affects the entire system in due measure.  He must
        therefore realize that every event is subject to him.  It occurs
        because he had need of it.  Iron rusts because the molecules
        demand oxygen for the satisfaction of
        their tendencies.  They do not crave hydrogen; therefore
        combination with that gas is an event which does not happen. All
        experiences contribute to make us complete in ourselves.  We feel
        ourselves subject to them so long as we fail to recognise this;
        when we do, we perceive that they are subject to us.  And
        whenever we strive to evade an experience, whatever it may be, we
        thereby do wrong to ourselves.  We thwart our own tendencies. To
        live is to change; and to oppose change is to revolt against the
        law which we have enacted to govern our lives.  To resent destiny
        is thus to abdicate our sovereignty, and to invoke death.
        Indeed, we have decreed the doom of death for every breach of the
        law of Life.  And every failure to incorporate any impression
        starves that particular faculty which stood in need of it.

           This Section B invokes Air in the East, with a shaft of golden
        glory.

                            --------

Section C.      The adept now invokes Fire in the South; flame red are the
             rays that burst from his Verendum.

                            --------

Section D.      He invokes Water in the West, his Wand billowing forth blue
             radiance.

                            --------

Section E.      He goes to the North to invoke Earth; flowers of green flame
             flash from his weapon.  As practice makes the Adept perfect in
             this Work, it becomes automatic to attach all these complicated
             ideas and intentions to their correlated words and acts.  When
             this is attained he may go deeper into the formula by amplifying
             its correspondences.  Thus, he may invoke water in the manner of
             water, extending his will with majestic and irresistible motion,
             mindful of its impulse gravitation, yet with a suave and tranquil
             appearance of weakness.  Again, he may apply the formula of water
             to its peculiar purpose as it surges back into his sphere, using
             it with conscious skill for the cleansing and calming of the
             receptive and emotional elements in his character, and for the
             solution or sweeping away of those tangled weeds of prejudice
             which hamper him from freedom to act as he will.  Similar
             applications of the remaining invocations will occur to the
             Adept who is ready to use them.

                            --------

Section F.      The Adept now returns to the Tiphereth square of his Tau, and
             invokes spirit, facing toward Boleskine, by the active
             Pentagrams, the sigil called the Mark of the Beast, and the Signs
             of L.V.X. (See plate as before).  He then vibrates the Names
             extending his will in the same way as before, but vertically
             upward.  At the same time he expands the Source of that Will ---
             the secret symbol of Self --- both about him and below, as if to
             affirm that Self, duplex as is its form, reluctant to acquiesce
             in its failure to coincide with the Sphere of Nuith.  Let him now
             imagine, at the last Word, that the Head of his will, where his
             consciousness is fixed, opens its fissure (the Brahmarandra-
             Cakkra, at the junction of the cranial sutures) and exudes a drop
             of clear crystalline dew, and that this pearl is his Soul, a
             virgin offering to his Angel, pressed forth from his being by the
             intensity of this Aspiration.

                            --------

Section Ff.     With these words the Adept does not withdraw his will within
             him as in the previous Sections.  He thinks of them as a
             reflection of Truth on the surface of the dew, where his Soul
             hides trembling.  He takes them to be the first formulation in
             his consciousness of the nature of His Holy Guardian Angel.

Line 1.         The "Gods" include all the conscious elements of his nature.

Line 2.         The "Universe" includes all possible phenomena of which he can
             be aware.

Line 3.         The "Winds" are his thoughts, which have prevented him from
             attaining to his Angel.

Line 4.         His Angel has made "Voice", the magical weapon which produces
             "Words", and these words have been the wisdom by which He hath
             created all things.  The "Voice" is necessary as the link between
             the Adept and his Angel.  The Angel is "King", the One who "can",
             the "source of authority and the fount of honour"; also the King
             (or King's Son) who delivers the Enchanted Princess, and makes
             her his Queen.  He is "Ruler", the "unconscious Will"; to be
             thwarted no more by the ignorant and capricious false will of the
             conscious man.  And He is "Helper", the author of the infallible
             impulse that sends the Soul sweeping along the skies on its
             proper path with such impetus that the attraction of alien orbs
             is no longer sufficient to swerve it.  The "Hear me" clause is
             now uttered by the normal human consciousness, withdrawn to the
             physical body; the Adept must deliberately abandon his
             attainment, because it is not yet his whole being which burns up
             before the Beloved.

                            --------


Section G.      The Adept, though withdrawn, shall have maintained the
             Extension of his Symbol.  He now repeats the signs as before,
             save that he makes the Passive Invoking Pentagram of Spirit.  He
             concentrates his consciousness within his Twin-Symbol of Self,
             and endeavours to send it to sleep.  But if the operation be
             performed properly, his Angel shall have accepted the offering
             of Dew, and seized with fervour upon the extended symbol of Will
             towards Himself. This then shall He shake vehemently with
             vibrations of love reverberating with the Words of the Section.
             Even in the physical ears of the adept there shall resound an
             echo thereof, yet he shall not be able to describe it.  It shall
             seem both louder than thunder, and softer than the whisper of
             the night-wind.  It shall at once be inarticulate, and mean more
             than he hath ever heard.

                Now let him strive with all the strength of his Soul to
             withstand the Will of his Angel, concealing himself in the
             closest cell of the citadel of consciousness.  Let him consecrate
             himself to resist the assault of the Voice and the Vibration
             until his consciousness faint away into Nothing.  For if there
             abide unabsorbed even one single atom of the false Ego, that atom
             should stain the virginity of the True Self and profane the Oath;
             then that atom should be so inflamed by the approach of the Angel
             that is should overwhelm the rest of the mind, tyrannize over it,
             and become an insane despot to the total ruin of the realm.

                But, all being dead to sense, who then is able to strive
             against the Angel?  He shall intensify the stress of His Spirit
             so that His loyal legions of Lion-Serpents leap from the ambush,
             awakening the adept to witness their Will and sweep him with them
             in their enthusiasm, so that he consciously partakes this
             purpose, and sees in its simplicity the solution of all his
             perplexities.  Thus then shall the Adept be aware that he is
             being swept away through the column of his Will Symbol.
             and that His Angel is indeed himself, with intimacy so intense as
             to become identity, and that not in a single Ego, but in every
             unconscious element that shares in that manifold uprush.

                This rapture is accompanied by a tempest of brilliant light,
             almost always, and also in many cases by an outburst of sound,
             stupendous and sublime in all cases, though its character may
             vary within wide limits.1

                The spate of stars shoots from the head of the Will-Symbol,
             and is scattered over the sky in glittering galaxies.  This
             dispersion destroys the concentration of the adept, whose mind
             cannot master such multiplicity of majesty; as a rule, he simply
             sinks stunned into normality, to recall nothing of his experience
             but a vague though vivid impression of complete release and
             ineffable rapture.  Repetition fortifies him to realise the
             nature of his attainment; and his Angel, the link once made,
             frequents him, and trains him subtly to be sensitive to his Holy
             presence, and persuasion.  But it may occur, especially after
             repeated success, that the Adept is not flung back into his
             mortality by the explosion of the Star-spate, but identified with
             one particular "Lion-Serpent", continuing conscious thereof until
             it finds its proper place in Space, when its secret self flowers
             forth as a truth, which the Adept may then take back to earth
             with him.

                This is but a side issue.  The main purpose of the Ritual is
             to establish the relation of the subconscious self with the Angel
             in such a way that the Adept is aware that his Angel is the Unity
             which expresses the sum of the Elements of that Self, that his
             normal consciousness contains alien enemies

 ----------------
 1. These phenomena are not wholly subjective; they may be perceived,
 though often under other forms, by even the ordinary man.


                              -286-
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------



             introduced by the accidents of environment, and that his
             Knowledge and Conversation of His Holy Guardian Angel destroys
             all doubts and delusions, confers all blessings, teaches all
             truth, and contains all delights.  But it is important that the
             Adept should not rest in mere inexpressible realization of his
             rapture, but rouse himself to make the relation submit to
             analysis, to render it in rational terms, and thereby enlighten
             his mind and heart in a sense as superior to fanatical enthusiasm
             as Beethoven's music is to West African war-drums.

                            --------

Section Gg.     The adept should have realised that his Act of Union with the
             angel implies (1) the death of his old mind save in so far as his
             unconscious elements preserve its memory when they absorb it, and
             (2) the death of his unconscious elements themselves.  But their
             death is rather a going forth to renew their life through love.
             He then, by conscious comprehension of them separately and
             together, becomes the "Angel" of his Angel, as Hermes is the Word
             of Zeus, whose own voice is Thunder.  Thus in this section the
             adept utters articulately so far as words may, what his Angel is
             to Himself.  he says this, with his Scin-Laeca wholly withdrawn
             into his physical body, constraining His Angel to indwell his
             heart.

Line 1.         "I am He" asserts the destruction of the sense of separateness
             between self and Self.  It affirms existence, but of the third
             person only.  "The Bornless Spirit" is free of all space, "having
             sight in the feet", that they may choose their own path.
             "Strong" is G B R, The Magician escorted by the Sun and the Moon
             (See Liber D and Liber 777).  The "Immortal Fire" is the creative
             Self; impersonal energy cannot perish, no matter what forms it
             assumes.  Combustion is Love.

Line 2.         "Truth" is the necessary relation of any two things;
             therefore, although it implies duality, it enables us to conceive
             of two things as being one thing such that it demands to be
             defined by complementals.  Thus, an hyperbola is a simple idea,
             but its construction exacts two curves.

Line 3.         The Angel, as the adept knows him, is a being Tiphereth, which
             obscures Kether.  The Adept is not officially aware of the higher
             Sephiroth.  He cannot perceive, like the Ipsissimus, that all
             things soever are equally illusion and equally Absolute.  He is
             in Tiphereth, whose office is Redemption, and he deplores the
             events which have caused the apparent Sorrow from which he has
             just escaped.  He is also aware, even in the height of his
             ecstasy, of the limits and defects of his Attainment.

Line 4.         This refers to the phenomena which accompany his Attainment.

Line 5.         This means the recognition of the Angel as the True Self of
             his subconscious self, the hidden Life of his physical life.

Line 6.         The Adept realises every breath, every word of his Angel as
             charged with creative fire.  Tiphereth is the Sun, and the Angel
             is the spiritual Sun of the Soul of the Adept.

Line 7.         Here is summed the entire process of bringing the conditioned
             Universe to knowledge of itself through the formula of
             generation1; a soul implants itself in sense-hoodwinked body and
             reason-fettered mind, makes them aware of their Inmate, and thus
             to partake of its own consciousness of the Light.

Line 8.         "Grace" has here its proper sense of "Pleasantness".

 ---------------
 1. That is, Yod H, HY, realizing Themselves, Will and Understanding in
 the twins Vau H, HV, Mind and body.


                              -288-
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------


             The existence of the Angel is the justification of the device of
             creation.1

Line 9.         This line must be studied in the light of Liber LXV (Equinox
             XI. p. 65).

Section H.      This recapitulation demands the going forth together of the
             Adept and his Angel "to do their pleasure on the Earth among the
             living."

Section J.      The Beast 666 having devised the present method of using this
             Ritual, having proved it by his own practice to be of infallible
             puissance when properly performed, and now having written it down
             for the world, it shall be an ornament for the Adept who adopts
             it to cry Hail to His name at the end of his work.  This shall
             moreover encourage him in Magick, to recall that indeed there was
             One who attained by its use to the Knowledge and Conversation of
             His Holy Guardian Angel, the which forsook him no more, but made
             Him a Magus, the Word of the Aeon of Horus!

                For know this, that the Name IAF in its most secret and mighty
             sense declareth the Formula of the Magick of the BEAST whereby he
             wrought many wonders.  And because he doth will that the whole
             world shall attain to this Art, He now hideth it herein so that
             the worthy may win to His Wisdom.

                Let I and F face all;2 yet ward their A from attack.  The
             Hermit to himself, the fool to foes,

----------------
1. But see also the general solution of the Riddle of Existence in The
Book of the Law and its Comment --- Part IV of Book 4.

2. If we adopt the new orthography VIAOV (Book 4 Part III Chap.
V.) we must read "The Sun-6-the Son" etc. for "all"; and elaborate this
interpretation here given in other ways, accordingly.  Thus O (of F) will
not be "The Fifteen by function" instead of "Five" etc., and "in act free,
firm, aspiring, ecstatic", rather than "gentle" etc. as in the present text.

                                     -189-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------



         The Hierophant to friends, Nine by nature, Naught by attainment,
         Five by function.  In speech swift, subtle and secret; in thought
         creative, unbiassed, unbounded; in act gentle, patient and
         persistent.  Hermes to hear, Dionysus to touch, Pan to behold.
            A Virgin, A Babe, and a Beast!
            A Liar, an Idiot, and a Master of Men!
            A kiss, a guffaw, and a bellow; he that hath ears to hear, let
         him hear!
            Take ten that be one, and one that is one in three, to conceal
         them in six!
            Thy wand to all Cups, and thy Disk to all Swords, but betray
         not thine Egg!
            Moreover also is IAF verily 666 by virtue of Number; and this
         is a Mystery of Mysteries; Who knoweth it, he is adept of adepts,
         and Mighty among Magicians!
            Now this word SABAF, being by number Three score and Ten,1 is
         a name of Ayin, the Eye, and the Devil our Lord, and the Goat of
         Mendes.  He is the Lord of the Sabbath of the Adepts, and is
         Satan, therefore also the Sun, whose number of Magick is 666, the
         seal of His servant the BEAST.
            But again SA is 61, AIN, the Naught of Nuith; BA means go, for
         Hadit; and F is their Son the Sun who is Ra-Hoor-Khuit.
            So then let the Adept set his sigil upon all the words he hath
         writ in the Book of the Works of his Will.

----------------

1. There is an alternative spelling TzBA-F Where the Root, (ABz) "an
Host", has the value of 93.  The Practicus should revive this Ritual
throughout in the Light of his personal researches in the Qabalah, and thus
make it his own peculiar property.  The spelling here suggested implies that
he who utters the Word affirms his allegiance to the symbols 93 and 61
that he is a warrior in the army of Will and of the Sun.  93 is also the
number of AIWAZ and 6 of The Beast.


                              -190-
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------


           And let him then end all, saying, Such are the Words!1  For by
        this he maketh proclamation before all them that be about his
        Circle that these Words are true and puissant, binding what he
        would bind, and loosing what he would loose.

           Let the Adept perform this Ritual aright, perfect in every
        part thereof, once daily for one moon, then twice, at dawn and
        dusk, for two moons, next, thrice, noon added, for three moons,
        afterwards, midnight making up his course, for four moons four
        times every day.  Then let the Eleventh Moon be consecrated
        wholly to this Work; let him be instant in continual ardour,
        dismissing all but his sheer needs to eat and sleep.2  For know
        that the true Formula3 whose virtue sufficed the Beast in this
        Attainment, was thus:

                          INVOKE OFTEN4

           So may all men come at last to the Knowledge and Conversation
        of the Holy Guardian Angel: thus sayeth the Beast, and prayeth
        His own Angel that this book be as a burning Lamp, and as a
        living Spring, for Light and Life to them that read therein.

                               666

 ---------------

 1. The consonants of LOGOS, "Word", add (Hebrew values: sGL) to 93.
 and EPH, "Words", (whence "Epic") has also that value: EIDE TA
 EPH might be the phrase here intended: its number is 418.  This would
 then assert the accomplishment of the Great Work; this is the natural
 conclusion of theRitual.  Cf. CCXX. III. 75.

 2. These needs are modified during the process of Initiation both as to
 quantity and quality.  One should not become anxious about one's
 physical or mental health on a priori grounds, but pay attention only to
 indubitable symptoms of distress should such arise.

 3. See Note page following.

 4. See Equinox I, VIII, 22.


                              -291-
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


3. (Note to page 291)
   The Oracles of Zoroaster utter this:
   "And when, by often invoking, all the phantasms are vanished, thou shalt
see that Holy and Formless Fire, that Fire which darts and flashes through
all the Depths of the Universe; hear thou the Voice of the Fire!
   "A similar Fire flashingly extending through the rushings of Air, or a
Fire formless whence cometh the Image of a voice, or even a flashing Light
abounding, revolving, whirling forth, crying aloud.  Also there is the
vision of the fire-flashing Courser of Light, or also a Child, borne aloft on
the shoulders of the Celestial Steed, fiery, or clothed with gold, or naked,
or shooting with the bow shafts or light, and standing on the shoulders of
the horse, then if thy meditation prolongeth itself, thou shalt unite all
these symbols into the form of a Lion."

   This passage --- combined with several others --- is paraphased in poetry
by Aleister Crowley in his "Tannhauser".

        "And when, invoking often, thou shalt see
        That formless Fire; when all the earth is shaken,
        The Stars abide not, and the moon is gone,
        All Time crushed back into Eternity,
        The Universe by earthquake overtaken;
        Light is not, and the thunders roll,
        The World is done:
        When in the darkness Chaos rolls again
        In the excited brain:
        Then, O then call not to thy view that visible
        Image of Nature; fatal is her name!
        It fitteth not thy Body to behold
        That living light of Hell,
        The unluminous, dead flame,
        Until that body from the crucible
        Hath passed, pure gold!
        For, from the confines of material space,
        The twilight-moving place,
        The gates of matter, and the dark threshold,
        Before the faces of the Things that dwell
        In the Abodes of Night,
        Spring into sight
        Demons, dog-faced, that show no mortal sign
        Of Truth, but desecrate the Light Divine,
        Seducing from the sacred mysteries.
        But, after all these Folk of Fear are driven
        Before the avenging levin
        That rives the opening skies,
        Behold that formless and that Holy Flame
        That hath no name;
        The Fire that darts and flashes, writhes and creeps
        Snake-wise in royal robe
        Wound round that vanished glory of the globe,
        Unto that sky beyond the starry deeps,
        Beyond the Toils of Time, --- then formulate
        In thine own mind, luminous, concentrate,
        The Lion of the Light, a child that stands
        On the vast shoulders of the Steed of God:
        Or winged, or shooting flying shafts, or shod
        With the flame-sandals.
                         Then, lift up thine hands!
        Centre thee in thine heart one scarlet thought
        Limpid with brilliance of the Light above!
        Drawn into naught
        All life, death, hatred, love:
        All self concentred in the sole desire ---
        Hear thou the Voice of Fire!"



                           -----------


                              POINT

                               III


                   SCHOLION ON SECTIONS G & Gg.


   The Adept who has mastered this Ritual, successfully realising the full
import of this controlled rapture, ought not to allow his mind to loosen its
grip on the astral imagery of the Star-spate, Will-Symbol, or Soul-symbol, or
even to forget its duty to the body and the sensible surroundings.  Nor should
he omit to keep his Body of Light in close touch with the phenomena  of its
own plane, so that its privy consciousness may fulfil its proper functions of
protecting his scattered ideals from obsession.

   But he should have acquired, by previous practice, the faculty of detaching
these elements of his consciousness from their articulate centre, so that they
become (temporarily) independent responsible units, capable of receiving
communications from headquarters at will, but perfectly able (1) to take care
of themselves without troubling their chief, and (2) to report to him at the
proper time.  In a figure, they must be like subordinate officers, expected to
display self-reliance, initiative, and integrity in the execution of the
Orders of the Day.

   The Adept should therefore be able to rely on these individual minds of his
to control their own conditions without interference from himself for the time
required, and to recall them in due course, receiving an accurate report of
their adventures.

   This being so, the Adept will be free to concentrate his deepest self, that
part of him which unconsciously orders his true Will, upon the realization of
his Holy Guardian Angel.  The absence of his bodily, mental and astral
consciousness is indeed cardinal to success, for it is their usurpation of his
attention which has made him deaf to his Soul, and his preoccupation with
their affairs that has prevented him from perceiving that Soul.

   The effect of the Ritual has been

   (a) to keep them so busy with their own work that they cease to distract
him;

   (b) to separate them so completely that his soul is stripped of its
sheaths;

   (c) to arouse in him an enthusiasm so intense as to intoxicate and
anaesthetize him, that he may not feel and resent the agony of this spiritual
vivisection, just as bashful lovers get drunk on the wedding night, in order
to brazen out the intensity of shame which so mysteriously coexists with their
desire;

   (d) to concentrate the necessary spiritual forces from every element, and
fling them simultaneously into the aspiration towards the Holy Guardian Angel;
and

   (e) to attract the Angel by the vibration of the magical voice which
invokes Him.

   The method of the Ritual is thus manifold.

   There is firstly an analysis of the Adept, which enables him to calculate
his course of action.  He can decide what must be banished, what purified,
what concentrated.  He can then concentrate his will upon its one essential
element, over-coming its resistance --- which is automatic, like a
physiological reflex --- by destroying inhibitions through his ego-
overwhelming enthusiasm.1  The other half of the work needs no such complex
effort; for his Angel is simple and unperplexed, ready at all times to respond
to rightly ordered approach.

----------------

1. A high degree of initiation is required.  This means that the process
of analysis must have been carried out very thoroughly.  The Adept must
have become aware of his deepest impulses, and understood their true
significance.  The "resistance" here mentioned is automatic; it increases
indefinitely against direct pressure.  It is useless to try to force oneself
in these matters; the uninitiated Aspirant, however eager he may be, is sure
to fail.  One must know how to deal with each internal idea as it arises.

   It is impossible to overcome one's inhibitions by conscious effort; their
existence justifies them.  God is on their side, as on that of the victim in
Browning's Instans Tyrannus.  A man cannot compel himself to love,
however much he may want to, on various rational grounds.  But on the
other hand, when the true impulse comes, it overwhelms all its critics; they
are powerless either to make or break a genius; it can only testify to the
fact that it has met its master.


                              -295-

---------------------------------------------------------------------------


   But the results of the Ritual are too various to permit of rigid
description.  One may say that, presuming the union to be perfect, the Adept
need not retain any memory soever of what has occurred.  He may be merely
aware of a gap in his conscious life, and judge of its contents by observing
that his nature has been subtly transfigured.  Such an experience might indeed
be the proof of perfection.

   If the Adept is to be any wise conscious of his Angel it must be that some
part of his mind is prepared to realise the rapture, and to express it to
itself in one way or another.  This involves the perfection of that part, its
freedom from prejudice and the limitations of rationality so-called.  For
instance: one could not receive the illumination as to the nature of life
which the doctrine of evolution should shed, if one is passionately persuaded
that humanity is essentially not animal, or convinced that causality is
repugnant to reason.  The Adept must be ready for the utter destruction of his
point of view on any subject, and even that of his innate conception of the
forms and laws of thought.1  Thus he may find that his Angel consider his
"business" or his "love" to be absurd trifles; also that human ideas of "time"
are invalid, and human "laws" of logic applicable only to the relations
between illusions.

   Now the Angel will make contact with the Adept at any point that is
sensitive to His influence.  Such a point will naturally be one that is
salient in the Adept's character, and also one that is, in the proper sense of
the word, pure2.

   Thus an artist, attuned to appreciate plastic beauty is likely to

----------------
1. Of course, even false tenets and modes of the mind are in one sense
true.  It is only their appearance which alters.  Copernicus did not destroy
the facts of nature, or change the instruments of observation.  He merely
effected a radical simplification of science.  Error is really a "fool's
knot". Moreover, the very tendency responsible for the entanglement is one of
the necessary elements of the situation.  Nothing is "wrong" in the end;
and one cannot reach the "right" point of view without the aid of one's
particular "wrong" point.  If we reject or alter the negative of a
photograph we shall not get a perfect positive.

2. This means, free from ideas, however excellent in themselves, which
are foreign to it.  For instance, literary interest has no proper place in a
picture.


                              -296-

-------------------------------------------------------------------------


receive a visual impression of his Angel in a physical form which is sublimely
quintessential of his ideal.  A musician may be rapt away by majestic melodies
such as he never hoped to hear.  A philosopher may attain apprehension of
tremendous truths, the solution of problems that had baffled him all his life.

   Conformably with this doctrine, we read of illuminations experienced by
simple-minded men, such as a workman who "saw God" and likened Him to "a
quantity of little pears".  Again, we know that ecstasy, impinging upon
unbalanced minds, inflames the idolised idea, and produces fanatical faith
fierce even to frenzy, with intolerance and insanely disordered energy which
is yet so powerful as to effect the destinies of empires.

   But the phenomena of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian
Angel are a side issue; the essence of the Union is the intimacy.  Their
intimacy (or rather identity) is independent of all partial forms of
expression; at its best it is therefore as inarticulate as Love.

   The intensity of the consummation will more probably compel a sob or a cry,
some natural physical gesture of animal sympathy with the spiritual spasm.
This is to be criticised as incomplete self-control.  Silence is nobler.

   In any case the Adept must be in communion with his Angel, so that his Soul
is suffused with sublimity, whether intelligible or not in terms of intellect.
It is evident that the stress of such spiritual possession must tend to
overwhelm the soul, especially at first.  It actually suffers from the excess
of its ecstasy, just as extreme love produces vertigo.  The soul sinks and
swoons.  Such weakness is fatal alike to its enjoyment and its apprehension.
"Be strong! then canst thou bear more rapture!" sayeth The Book of the Law.1

   The Adept must therefore play the man, arousing himself to harden his soul.

   To this end, I, the Beast, have made trial and proof of divers devices. Of
these the most potent is to set the body to strive with

----------------

1. Liber Al vel Legis, II, 61-68, where the details of the proper
technique are discussed.
[WEH Note extension:  The passage in quotations in this sentence nowhere
appears in The Book of the Law.  Crowley is evidently recapitulating
several passages in a paraphrase.  AL II, 22 starts this, and the verses
cited in this note conclude it.]


                              -297-

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the soul.  Let the muscles take grip on themselves as if one were wrestling.
Let the jaw and mouth, in particular, be tightened to the utmost.  Breathe
deeply, slowly, yet strongly.  Keep mastery over the mind by muttering
forcibly and audibly.  But lest such muttering tend to disturb communion with
the Angel, speak only His Name.  Until the Adept have heard that Name,
therefore, he may not abide in the perfect possession of his Beloved.  His
most important task is thus to open his ears to the voice of his Angel, that
he may know him, how he is called.  For hearken! this Name, understood rightly
and fully, declareth the nature of the Angel in every point, wherefore also
that Name is the formula of the perfection to which the Adept must aspire, and
also of the power of Magick by virtue whereof he must work.

   He then that is as yet ignorant of that Name, let him repeat a word worthy
of this particular Ritual.  Such are Abrahadabra, the Word of the Aeon, which
signifieth "The Great Work accomplished"; and Aumgn interpreted in Part III of
Book 41; and the name of THE BEAST, for that His number showeth forth this
Union with the Angel, and His Work is no other than to make all men partakers
of this Mystery of the Mysteries of Magick.

   So then saying this word or that, let the Adept wrestle with his Angel and
withstand Him, that he may constrain Him to consent to continue in communion
until the consciousness becomes capable of clear comprehension, and of
accurate transmission2 of the

----------------

1. The essence of this matter is that the word AUM, which expresses
the course of Breath (spiritual life) from free utterance through controlled
concentration to Silence, is transmuted by the creation of the compound
letter MGN to replace M: that is, Silence is realized as passing into
continuous ecstatic vibration, of the nature of "Love" under "Will" as
shewn by MGN = 40 + 3 + 50 = 93  AGAPH, JELHMA etc., and the
whole word has the value of 100, Perfection Perfected, the Unity in
completion, and equivalent to KR the conjunction of the essential male and
female principles.

2. The "normal" intellect is incapable of these functions; a superior
faculty must have been developed.  As Zoroaster says: "Extend the void
mind of thy soul to that Intelligible that thou mayst learn the Intelligible,
because it subsisteth beyond Mind.  Thou wilt not understand It as when
understanding some common thing."


                              -298-

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transcendent Truth of the Beloved to the heart that holds him.

   The firm repetition of one of these Words ought to enable the Adept to
maintain the state of Union for several minutes, even at first.

   In any case he must rekindle his ardour, esteeming his success rather as an
encouragement to more ardent aspiration than as a triumph.  He should increase
his efforts.

   Let him beware of the "lust of result", of expecting too much, of losing
courage if his first success is followed by a series of failures.

   For success makes success seem so incredible that one is apt to create an
inhibition fatal to subsequent attempts.  One fears to fail; the fear intrudes
upon the concentration and so fulfils its own prophecy.  We know how too much
pleasure in a love affair makes one afraid to disgrace oneself on the next few
occasions; indeed, until familiarity has accustomed one to the idea that one's
lover has never supposed one to be more than human.  Confidence returns
gradually.  Inarticulate ecstasy is replaced by a more sober enjoyment of the
elements of the fascination.

   Just so one's first dazzled delight in a new landscape turns, as one
continues to gaze, to the appreciation of exquisite details of the view.  At
first they were blurred by the blinding rush of general beauty; they emerge
one by one as the shock subsides, and passionate rapture yields to intelligent
interest.

   In the same way the Adept almost always begins by torrential lyrics
painting out mystical extravagances about "ineffable love", "unimaginable
bliss", "inexpressible infinities of illimitable utterness".1  He usually
loses his sense of proportion, of humour, of reality, and of sound judgment.
His ego is often inflated to the bursting point, till he would be abjectly
ridiculous if he were not so pitifully dangerous to himself and others.  he
also tends to take his new-found "truths of illumination" for the entire body
of truth, and insists that they must be as valid an vital for all men as they
happen to be for himself.

----------------
1. This corresponds to the emotional and metaphysical fog which is
characteristic of the emergence of thought from homogeneity.  The clear
and concise differentiation of ideas marks the adult mind.


                              -299-
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   It is wise to keep silence about those things "unlawful to utter" which one
may have heard "in the seventh heaven".  This may not apply to the sixth.

   The Adept must keep himself in hand, however tempted to make a new heaven
and a new earth in the next few days by trumpeting his triumphs.  He must give
time a chance to redress his balance, sore shaken by the impact of the
Infinite.

   As he becomes adjusted to intercourse with his Angel, he will find his
passionate ecstasy develop a quality of peace and intelligibility which adds
power, while it informs and fortifies his mental and moral qualities instead
of obscuring and upsetting them.  He will by now have become able to converse
with his Angel, impossible as it once seemed; for he now knows that the storm
of sound which he supposed to be the Voice was only the clamour of his own
confusions.  The "infinity" nonsense was born of his own inability to think
clearly beyond his limits, just as a Bushman, confronted by numbers above
five, can only call them "many".

   The truth told by the Angel, immensely as it extends the horizon of the
Adept, is perfectly definite and precise.  It does not deal in ambiguities and
abstractions.  It possesses form, and confesses law, in exactly the same way
and degree as any other body of truth.  It is to the truth of the material and
intellectual spheres of man very much what the Mathematics of Philosophy with
its "infinite series" and "Cantorian continuity" is to schoolboy arithmetic.
Each implies the other, though by that one may explore the essential nature of
existence, and by this a pawnbroker's profits.

   This then is the true aim of the Adept in this whole operation, to
assimilate himself to his Angel by continual conscious communion.  For his
Angel is an intelligible image of his own true Will, to do which is the whole
of the law of his Being.

   Also the Angel appeareth in Tiphereth, which is the heart of the Ruach, and
thus the Centre of Gravity of the Mind.  It is also directly inspired from
Kether, the ultimate Self, through the Path of the High Priestess, or
initiated intuition.  Hence the Angel is in truth the Logos or articulate
expression of the whole Being of the Adept, so that as he increases in the
perfect understanding of His name, he approaches the solution of the ultimate
problem, Who he himself truly is.

   Unto this final statement the Adept may trust his Angel to lead him; for
the Tiphereth-consciousness alone is connected by paths with the various parts
of his mind.1  None therefore save He hath the knowledge requisite for
calculating the combinations of conduct which will organise and equilibrate
for forces of the Adept, against the moment when it becomes necessary to
confront the Abyss.  The Adept must control a compact and coherent mass if he
is to make sure of hurling it from him with a clean-cut gesture.

   I, The Beast 666, lift up my voice and swear that I myself have been
brought hither by mine Angel.  After that I had attained unto the Knowledge
and Conversation of Him by virtue of mine ardour towards Him, and of this
Ritual that I bestow upon men my fellows, and most of His great Love that He
beareth to me, yea, verily, He led me to the Abyss; He bade me fling away all
that I had and all that I was; and He forsook me in that Hour.  But when I
came beyond the Abyss, to be reborn within the womb of BABALON, then came he
unto me abiding in my virgin heart, its Lord and Lover!

   Also He made me a Magus, speaking through His Law, the Word of the new
Aeon, the Aeon of the Crowned and Conquering Child.2  Thus he fulfilled my
will to bring full freedom to the race of Men.

   Yea, he wrought also in me a Work of wonder beyond this, but in this matter
I am sworn to hold my peace.

----------------

1. See the maps "Minutum Mundum" in the Equinox I, 1, 2, & 3 and
the general relations detailed in Liber 777, of which the most important
columns are reprinted in Appendix V.

2. For the account of these matters see The Equinox, Vol. I, "The
Temple of Solomon the King", Liber 418, Liber Aleph, "John St. John",
"The Urn", and Book 4, Part IV.


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