Volume I, Number VI.

THE VOICE OF FIRE

 

 

 

illustration by B. Van-Asten

 

 

Volume 1, Number 6. Autumn Equinox An CIX ☉ in 0° Libra, ☽ in 24° Virgo.

Tuesday 23rd September 2014 e.v.

 

  'Draw into naught

All life, death, hatred, love:

All self concentred in the sole desire -

Hear thou the Voice of Fire!'

Tannhauser. Aleister Crowley.

 

  Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

Love is the law, love under will.

Volume 1, Number 6 of the Voice of Fire is dedicated to Julian Levett Baker [1873-1958]

 

 

CONTENTS

 

                                                     Editorial

                                                     Julian Levett Baker

                                                     Liber A'ASH

                                                     The Romance of Olivia Vane

                                                     Liber XXXVI The Star Sapphire

                                                     The Veil of Eden

                                                     Chokmah Days - A Summary
                                                     A Bear in the Orchard

                                                     Death's Song to Humanity

                                                     Alys in Cumberland
                                                     The Wand of Silence
                                                     The Magic Book Worm
                                                     Pegamina part six

 

 

EDITORIAL

 

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law

 

‘it’s in the trees’ –

[Professor Harrington. The Night of the Demon. 1957]

The sun beat down as I arrived at Foyers and walked down to the famous Falls. Bulbous ‘fairy-tale’ mushrooms lay in squat bunches and in singular displays along the birch and heather route from the Upper to the Lower Falls. On past the Foyers Bay Hotel as the energies of the Aeon of Horus intensify with every step and every gentle breeze whispers ‘it’s in the trees’ as you ascend through woodland to the Foyers Lodge and to General Wade’s Military Road (B852).
Walking along the road it isn’t long until the old burial ground comes into view on the left side of the road (loch-side from Foyers). Opposite of course, is Boleskine House but little of the house can be seen from the road. I ventured into the burial ground which seemed quite innocuous in the daylight and I noticed that upon the wooden window frame of the old stone grave-watchers hut, someone had scrawled ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law’. And I stood there and thought as I gazed towards the house:

It was here – on Monday 31st January 1887 that the great granddaughter of the Right Honourable Simon, eleventh Lord Lovat (of the 45’s), Mrs Janetta Fraser Macpherson Fraser died in the house.
It was here – on Tuesday 29th November 1898 that Katherine Burton, nee Innes died in the house aged seventy-one, eldest daughter of Cosmo Innes and widow of the political economist John Hill Burton.
It was here – in August 1899 that Aleister Crowley first saw the house and decided that it would be a perfect location to perform the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage.
It was here – on Saturday 24th February 1900 that Aleister Crowley made his preparations for the Sacred Magic of Abramelin.
It was here – on Thursday 28th July 1904 that a daughter named Nuit Ma Ahathoor Hecate Sappho Jezebel Lilith was born to Rose and Aleister Crowley.
It was here – on Thursday 27th April 1905 that the physician, photographer and climber Doctor Jules Jacot-Guillarmod (1868-1925) visited Crowley.
It was here – two days later on Saturday 29th April 1905 that Crowley, Doctor Jacot-Guillarmod and Crowley’s piper and ghillie, Hugh Gillies entertained the Doctor with the great haggis hunt hoax.
It was here – on Monday 28th July 1909 that Crowley re-discovered the ‘lost manuscript’ of Liber Legis.
It was here – on Tuesday 8th November 1960 that the retired Army Major Edward Errick Grant shot himself in the bedroom of the house. He was fifty-one years old. And
It was here – in 1971, that Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, the new owner of the house, installed his childhood friend Malcolm Dent (1944-2011) at the house to help with repairs and renovation...
In fact, the history of the house and the area goes on and on...

To those of us who have more than a passing interest in Aleister Crowley and magick/Thelema, depending on your views, the house and the area around it are sacred and visiting the site is nothing short of a pilgrimage. Tomorrow (18th September) Scotland decides in the referendum whether to be an independent country, or indeed she may vote against it. Whichever way she votes, let us not let politics invade upon our spiritual endeavours. Scotland is one of the most beautiful countries in the world and it is easy to see why Crowley so dearly loved it here in the Highlands. So let us respect Boleskine and its surroundings; let us embrace the ‘midge’ and wholeheartedly love the ‘tick’, for it may be the dawn of a new Scotland, afterall, stranger things have happened, who’d have thought the wonderful Kate Bush would be seen again in public in our lifetime with her fantastic performances recently. All in all, it leaves me with no doubt that there is still hope of seeing the mysterious Nessie, some day! Something definitely must be ‘in the trees’.

Boleskine burial ground.

4 pm. Wednesday 17th September 2014.

Love is the law, love under will.

P.S. Scotland did indeed vote ‘no’ to devolution and pictures from my Foyers trip will appear in the next edition of the Voice of Fire.

The Voice of Fire welcomes submissions (poetry, short stories, articles and reviews etc). Please send all submissions to the editor at barryvanasten418@hotmail.com

 

JULIAN LEVETT BAKER

 

 

Monday 24th February 1873: Julian Levett Baker born in Camberwell. His father is George Nathaniel Levett Baker, a banker’s clerk, born 1843, Newington, Surrey [died 1922 at 16 Slaithwaite Road, Lewisham] and his mother is Bessie Helen Baker nee Buckman, born 1845, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire [died 1932, Lewisham]. George and Bessie were married in Cheltenham in the summer of 1871 and following Julian’s birth, they had two more children: Ethel Melinda Baker, born 1874 in Camberwell [Ethel married George Cecil Jones] and Muriel Albinia Baker, born 1876 also in Camberwell [Muriel remained unmarried and died in1955]

Julian is educated at the City of London School.

During the 1881 census for England and Wales the family was living at 15 Windsor Road, Camberwell.

Easter 1888: Julian contracts scarlet fever and does not return to the City of London School. Julian’s father arranged for him to have academic coaching and Julian passes the entrance exam to Finsbury Technical College where he studied chemistry for three years.

In 1891 the Baker’s are living at 57 Hendham Road, Wandsworth. Also in 1891 Julian became assistant chemist (later chief chemist) to the London Beetroot Sugar Association under Arthur Robert Ling (1861-1937) the future professor of brewing at Birmingham with whom he collaborated.

Saturday 16th June 1894: Julian becomes a member of the Golden Dawn at the Isis Urania Temple taking the magical motto Frater Causa Scientiae [for the sake of knowledge]

Wednesday 18th March 1896: Julian becomes a member of the Golden Dawn’s Second Order taking the magical motto Frater D A.

August 1898: Julian Baker meets Aleister Crowley in Zermatt, Switzerland, below the Matterhorn in a beer hall where Crowley is discussing alchemy. Baker introduces himself and they talk as they walk back to their hotel. Crowley wondered if Baker was the ‘master’ he had been seeking and decided to ask him the following morning. But early the next day Baker had left the hotel and Crowley telegraphed and searched the local hotels and the train stations for him. Crowley says he went up the Gornergrat, an Alpine ridge south of Zermatt and not seeing Baker there must have just missed him as Baker was walking down the mountain valley to Brig. Crowley pursued his ‘master’ and eventually caught up with him ten miles below Zermatt and he asks Baker if he is the ‘master’. Baker smiled and said ‘no’ but agreed that when they get back to London he would introduce Crowley to a man who is ‘much more of a magician than I am’.

September 1898: Crowley is staying at the Hotel Cecil in London and most definitely corresponding with Baker.

October 1898: Baker introduces Crowley to George Cecil Jones (1873-1960). Baker and Jones teach Crowley the technique of astral projection and in two months Crowley undertook 18 such visions which he part includes in The Equinox, volume I, number II.

Friday 18th November 1898: Crowley becomes a member of the Golden Dawn.

December 1898: Crowley dedicates his ‘Songs of the Spirit’ to Julian Levett Baker.

April 1899: Baker becomes a Fellow of the Society of Public Analysts. He is also made a fellow of Imperial College (FIC) and a Fellow of the Chemical Society (FCS).

1900: Julian became the first chemist to be appointed to the London Brewery [The Stag Brewery at Pimlico, operated by Watney, Comb, Reid and Co Ltd]. He remained there until he retired in 1946 [in 1947 Watney, Comb, Reid and Co Ltd were bought by Crowley & Co]

Tuesday 3rd April 1900: Crowley is in London and he talks to Julian about concerns within the Golden Dawn and Julian replies that he is sick of the politics in the order.

Thursday 24th May 1900: Crowley and Baker talk at a Holborn Restaurant concerning what was written about Elaine Simpson and Baker calms Crowley who is eager for court action.

Summer 1901: In Islington, Julian marries Eveleen Daniels, born 1877 in County Cork, Ireland, the daughter of H A Daniels of Fermoy, County Cork. Eveleen died in 1945.

1904: Julian and Eveleen’s first child is born named Sheila Baker, in Chiswick, London.

1905: Baker became Honorary Secretary (of the London section) of the Society of Chemical Industry. Also in 1905 Baker published his book The Brewing Industry.

1907: A son is born to Julian and Eveleen whom they name Patrick Aeroux Julian Baker, in Staines, Middlesex. [He married Helen Gardner in 1940]

1907-1920: Baker is made Editor of The Analyst.

1908-1911: Julian becomes an examiner for the City and Guilds London Institute.

1908-1918: Being a founder member, Baker is appointed Honorary Secretary of the Institute of Brewing.

1909: Julian’s article on ‘Malt and malt liquors’ is given a chapter in ‘Allan’s Commercial Organic Analysis’.

During the 1911 census Julian, an ‘analytical and consulting chemist’, Eveleen and their children are living at a house called Stainsesbury Holt, Kingston Road, Staines, Middlesex. Also in 1911, Julian’s article on ‘Fermentation’ appears in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

1913: Another son is born to Julian and Eveleen named Desmond H Baker, in Staines, Middlesex.

1918-1958: Baker is appointed Vice President of the Institute of Brewing.

1920-1949: Baker is made Editor of the Journal of the Institute of Brewing.

Thursday 6th November 1924: Julian delivered the Streatfield Memorial Lecture at Finsbury Technical College, London.

1928-1931: Julian becomes an examiner at the University of Birmingham.

1944: Julian became elected to the City and Guilds of London Institute.

Tuesday 15th May 1945: Death of Julian’s wife Eveleen. She is buried at Cookham Parish Cemetery.

1948: Julian, aged 75, marries 72 year old Catherine Lucy Paul. She was born Catherine Lucy Pearson in Clifton, Gloucestershire in 1876. The daughter of a civil engineer, she married Arthur Clifford Saint Paul in 1904 in Bristol. Arthur had worked for Bristol City Council’s finance department until his death in 1924. Julian and Catherine Lucy Baker lived in Dial Cottage. Also in 1948 Julian received the Horace Brown Medal, the highest award from the Institute of Brewing.

1956: Catherine Lucy Baker died.

Wednesday 29th January 1958: Death of Julian Levett Baker at Maidenhead Hospital, Berkshire. He is buried with his first wife Eveleen at Cookham Parish Cemetery.

 

 

LIBER A’ASH

VEL CAPRICORNI PNEUMATICI

SUB FIGURÂ CCCLXX

1. Gnarled Oak of God! In thy branches is the lightning nested! Above thee hangs the Eyeless Hawk.  2. Thou art blasted and black! Supremely solitary in that heath of scrub.
3. Up! The Ruddy clouds hang over thee! It is the storm.
4. There is a flaming gash in the sky.
5. Up.
6. Thou art tossed about in the grip of the storm for an æon and an æon and an æon. But thou givest not thy sap; thou fallest not.
7. Only in the end shalt thou give up thy sap when the great God F.I.A.T. is enthroned on the day of Be-With-Us.
8. For two things are done and a third thing is begun. Isis and Osiris are given over to incest and adultery. Horus leaps up thrice armed from the womb of his mother. Harpocrates his twin is hidden within him. Set is his holy covenant, that he shall display in the great day of M.A.A.T., that is being interpreted the Master of the Temple of A∴ A∴, whose name is Truth.
9. Now in this is the magical power known.
10. It is like the oak that hardens itself and bears up against the storm. It is weather-beaten and scarred and confident like a sea-captain.
11. Also it straineth like a hound in the leash.
12. It hath pride and great subtlety. Yea, and glee also!
13. Let the Magus act thus in his conjuration.
14. Let him sit and conjure; let him draw himself together in that forcefulness; let him rise next swollen and straining; let him dash back the hood from his head and fix his basilisk eye upon the sigil of the demon. Then let him sway the force of him to and fro like a satyr in silence, until the Word burst from his throat.
15. Then let him not fall exhausted, although the might have been ten thousandfold the human; but that which floodeth him is the infinite mercy of the Genitor-Genitrix of the Universe, whereof he is the Vessel.
16. Nor do thou deceive thyself. It is easy to tell the live force from the dead matter. It is no easier to tell the live snake from the dead snake.
17. Also concerning vows. Be obstinate, and be not obstinate. Understand that the yielding of the Yoni is one with the lengthening of the Lingam. Thou art both these; and thy vow is but the rustling of the wind on Mount Meru.
18. Now shalt thou adore me who am the Eye and the Tooth, the Goat of the Spirit, the Lord of Creation. I am the Eye in the Triangle, the Silver Star that ye adore.
19. I am Baphomet, that is the Eightfold Word that shall be equilibrated with the Three.
20. There is no act or passion that shall not be an hymn in mine honour.
21. All holy things and all symbolic things shall be my sacraments.
22. These animals are sacred unto me; the goat, and the duck, and the ass, and the gazelle, the man, the woman and the child.
23. All corpses are sacred unto me; they shall not be touched save in mine eucharist. All lonely places are sacred unto me; where one man gathereth himself together in my name, there will I leap forth in the midst of him.
24. I am the hideous god, and who mastereth me is uglier than I.
25. Yet I give more than Bacchus and Apollo; my gifts exceed the olive and the horse.
26. Who worshippeth me must worship me with many rites.
27. I am concealed with all concealments; when the Most Holy Ancient One is stripped and driven through the marketplace, I am still secret and apart.
28. Whom I love I chastise with many rods.
29. All things are sacred to me; no thing is sacred from me.
30. For there is no holiness where I am not.
31. Fear not when I fall in the fury of the storm; for mine acorns are blown afar by the wind; and verily I shall rise again, and my children about me, so that we shall uplift our forest in Eternity.
32. Eternity is the storm that covereth me.
33. I am Existence, the Existence that existeth not save through its own Existence, that is beyond the Existence of Existences, and rooted deeper than the No-Thing-Tree in the Land of No-Thing.
34. Now therefore thou knowest when I am within thee, when my hood is spread over thy skull, when my might is more than the penned Indus, and resistless as the Giant Glacier.
35. For as thou art before a lewd woman in Thy nakedness in the bazaar, sucked up by her slyness and smiles, so art thou wholly and no more in part before the symbol of the beloved, though it be but a Pisacha or a Yantra or a Deva.
36. And in all shalt thou create the Infinite Bliss and the next link of the Infinite Chain.
37. This chain reaches from Eternity to Eternity, ever in triangles—is not my symbol a triangle?—ever in circles—is not the symbol of the Beloved a circle? Therein is all progress base illusion, for every circle is alike and every triangle alike!
38. But the progress is progress, and progress is rapture, constant, dazzling, showers of light, waves of dew, flames of the hair of the Great Goddess, flowers of the roses that are about her neck, Amen!
39. Therefore lift up thyself as I am lifted up. Hold thyself in as I am master to accomplish. At the end, be the end far distant as the stars that lie in the navel of Nuit, do thou slay thyself as I at the end am slain, in the death that is life, in the peace that is mother of war, in the darkness that holds light in his hand as an harlot that plucks a jewel from her nostrils.
40. So therefore the beginning is delight, and the End is delight, and delight is in the midst, even as the Indus is water in the cavern of the glacier, and water among the greater hills and the lesser hills and through the ramparts of the hills and through the plains, and water at the mouth thereof when it leaps forth into the mighty sea, yea, into the mighty sea.

THE ROMANCE OF OLIVIA VANE

by VICTOR NEUBURG

 

To “OLIVIA VANE”

AND HER OTHER LOVER

 

Paris, March 1909

 

Iam veniet virgo, jam dicetur Hymnenaeus.

CATULLUS.

 

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain –

KEATS.

I

 

When first the golden trumpets came

To set my soul in fire and flame,

I lay unheeding, blind and dumb,

Ere ever wizard Night was come.

 

But, in the gloaming, light flashed by,

And cast me on the burning sky;

A river of light thrilled through my being,

And made my eyes bright and unseeing.

 

II

 

Sweet wizard, in whose footsteps I have trod

Unto the shrine of the most obscene god,

So steep the pathway is, I may not know,

Until I reach the summit, where I go.

My love is deathless as the springs of Truth,

My love is pure as is the dawn of youth,

But all my being throbs in rhythm with thine,

Who leadest on to the horizon-line.

 

III

 

O Pan, my slave and lord, god who hast turned the key

Within the rusty ward – the chambered mystery

Hath lain beneath mine eyes! Ah! I have known, my sweet,

My body, pure and whole, is merged within the ways

That lead to thee, my queen, who gav’st thy life to me

When all my heart was green, a lost wave in the sea.

I thank thee; thou hast been the way of life to me.

 

IV

 

I have found the light and the shadows,

The night-fall over the meadows,

The night-fall over the sea;

The night is the soul of me.

 

I have the way and the truth,

O thou, who hast given me youth,

O thou, who art fair and wise,

Whose words are the fairest lies.

 

I have heard the soul of thee say

The glorious legend of the day,

The glorious way of the wise,

And the glorious youth in my eyes.

 

I have spoken; the four-fold word

In my soul hath been echoed and heard,

In my soul hath renewed the spring;

My soul is dark, and doth sing.

 

V

 

I cross the water with the sun;

The light plays on the sea.

The Channel waters race and run

Betwixt thy soul and me.

Ah! never shall the song be done

That sung ‘twixt me and thee.

 

I give my song the fevered breath

That from thee I have won;

I love thee ever, unto death –

Till the last star-crowned sun

In glamour of spring-tide witnesseth

The thing that we have done.

 

VI

 

Light wind, night wind,

Starry fold and fell, –

Thy light, my light,

Who shall know and tell?

Hark! hushed singing! Dawn is springing

On us in love’s dell.

 

Gray world, gay world,

World of thee and me,

Red day, dead day,

This our song shall be: -

I have found thee, I have bound thee,

One in Pan are we!

 

VII

 

All yesterday died hosts of angels in me,

I was cast out from hell, and found the earth;

And it was thou, sweet poet-soul, didst win me

To the most glorious, subtile, pagan birth;

Lady of light, take thou my lips, and be

The sunlight flaring on the blue-gold sea.

 

I crossed the channel, yesterday, with singing

I could not still afoam within my heart;

For unto thee I fain had still been winging

Mine eager way since from thee I did part.

Come thou and slumber with me; there is rest

For thee and Love together, in my breast.

 

Slow was thy wooing, so I crept upon thee

Until thy radiant face from sleep did rise;

And in the moment that I leapt upon thee,

I felt the agony of thy burning eyes,

And all my heart was thine; and now I know

The depth of fire beneath life’s glittering snow.

 

VIII

 

I think that never in my loneliness

May I forget my glory and my shame,

Nor the swift lightning-flash that ‘twixt us came

To strike the tower of my soul’s distress:

And thou, who hast been my heart’s glad ministress,

Who hast burned the lumber of my cross with flame

Drawn from my heart; - Oh, thou hast made me tame

With love, and with the loss of thee no less.

 

Come back across the sea to comfort me

With purple kisses, touches all unplanned!

Let me once more feel thy strong hand to be

Making the magic signs upon me! Stand,

Stand in the light, and let mine eyes drink in

The glorious vision of the death of sin!

 

IX

 

Lyric light is mine

Brother of the way;

Give me yellow wine,

Sing me songs to-day –

I am thine, and thine

I shall be alway.

 

Laughter of the gods

Makes melodious song

In the phallic rods

Of those who dare and long:

The dull world slowly plods;

Our pinions shall be strong.

 

Thou art mine, for

I Live my life in thee:

While beneath the sky

Thou remember’st me –

Till at last we die –

One in Pan are we.

 

The light that thou hast given

Lights my muse to bed:

Thou hast starred my heaven

With planets wild and red:

Twin stars and planets seven

Are lighted overhead.

 

X

 

All yesterday the spring was born,

The spring that Ovid sang of old;

All yesterday the birth of morn

Held all the daylight wrapt in gold.

The buds unfold! The buds unfold!

 

All yesterday the olden lore

Was true to me; I saw how I

Had lived and loved and died before

In every land beneath the sky.

And we must die! And we must die!

 

All yesterday the way was paved

With burnished mirrors picturing

In all the lands, enthroned, enslaved,

Love coming with the birth of spring,

As now I sing! As now I sing!

 

All yesterday thou hauntedst me,

As thou, I know, hast done of old;

All yesterday I sought for thee

Through all the paths of beaten gold;

The ways unfold! The ways unfold!

 

XI

 

Some time, long hence, when I am old and gray,

They will say, “Once you knew him?” I shall say,

Smiling upon my eager questioners,

“I knew him once in this wide universe.”

 

And they shall ask me of your garb and port,

And of the miracles men say you wrought,

And I shall smile upon their questioning,

And tell how in my soul you wrought the spring.

 

And they shall ask of this and that, and I

Shall smile as old men do before they die,

Anew shalt thou be born from my old tongue,

And they shall wonder, for they shall be young.

 

And they shall know how once I gave my breath,

My hand, my lyre, to thee, and said, “Till death

The image of this man shall not depart

Out of the inmost shrine within my heart.”

 

But they shall know not how we entered in,

Finding deliverance in the death of sin,

How pagan laughter leapt from eye to eye

Beside the sea, under a cloudless sky.

 

XII

 

A SONNET leaps unto my lips, O King,

And every note shall be as first it springs;

I may not check the hot speed of my wings

Now I have found a voice and heart to sing. –

For thou hast waved thy rod, and everything

Hath been transmuted. Now the sunlight brings

Desire of love, and longing for the stings

That eat into me while I feel her cling

 

And cling about me, seeking all my gift

Of body and soul; leaving no fragment mine,

Yet taking all, herself she giveth me;

She is the cloud that hides the sun, to drift

Over the face of heaven, and feed the sea

With a new-breaking flood of healing brine.

 

XIII

 

I may not weep, for now mine eyes are tearless,

But ah! my soul is bathed in bloody brine;

I know no fear, for now my heart is fearless,

For thou for ever and ever shalt be mine:

I await thee in this city; when thou dost come,

My songs shall end; thy lips shall make me dumb.

 

My virile soul shall tremble at thy coming,

And thou shalt spend thy spirit’s plenteous store

On me, to sleep and death well-nigh succumbing

Beneath thy body’s weight. Ah, come once more;

Grant me but that I seek, and I shall be

For ever fastened on the breast of thee.

 

Oh, thou who art the red dawn’s only singer,

Take these my songs; take them, for they are thine;

Be once again my muse’s thunder-bringer;

Her voice grows harsh for lack of thy bright wine.

Oh, woo her forth! As to thine arms she slips,

Stay thou her song with kisses! Stop her lips!

 

Come, and bring ease unto my thirsting soul;

Give what thou hast, spare me nor pain, nor dread;

Ah! having taken love thou hast taken the whole:

Come thou unto me now, and let thine head

Lie on my breast, and let me stroke thy skin

With my light hand! Come thou, and enter in!

 

XIV

 

How foolish are the men who make their heaven

A distant vision of the world to be,

When we found hell and heaven not bereaven,

But brothers in the souls of thee and me.

All schemes that men have wrought for life’s undoing

Found swift expression in our sudden wooing.

All hells, all heavens, still transcended be

By him who in his ardent breast doth bear

Knowledge that sets him from the gray world free,

By reason of the master-spirit there.

From my strong soul this charter I did win:

Thou hast sinned in love; thou hast transcended sin.

 

It may be, as thou sayest, that old Horus

Hath been re-born beneath these sunny skies,

Here, when I hymn my love’s low-sounding chorus,

Warmed by the glamour of our merry eyes.

Love! never more shall men’s Utopias be

As veils before the naked Mystery.

 

I see the summer sky break into rime,

And I must sing in rhythm with it still,

Until thou comest to me; all the time

Thou art not here, with song dost thou fulfil

The daylight, since the secret hour I won

The lyric light of thee, my risen Sun.

 

XV

 

Fresh from the heaven of new-born desire,

I wait thee here, and all my veins are fire;

And all my breath is breathed in rhythm with thee;

Come, therefore, and set free

My voice, my lyre.

 

I knew not love, till thou hadst given me pain,

Nor heard love’s music, till the heavenly rain

Descended on me, and the gray-lined cloud

Left me new-born and proud.

Come back again!

 

Ah, thou art wise and fair, and I am nought,

Save as I dwell in thy most god-like thought.

Take thou my body, now hermaphrodite,

Pink-tipped and gleaming white,

For love’s sake wrought.

 

XVI

 

The world without may never change,

But still the changeless soul within

Through worlds of spirit and sense may range,

Unfettered by the primal sin

That man did win.

 

So now the aspect of the sun

Is turned to something fierier yet

Than that old bright accustomed one

Whose radiance was wont to set

My body asweat.

 

For now the sun is grown a world

Whose glances burn the earth with love,

Whose rays are banners fiercely hurled

Around earth’s bosom from above,

My soul, my dove.

 

Rejoice: The stars are yellow stains

Set in our canopy aflame,

That stir the agony in my veins

To rapture, when I think we came

From a star self-same.

 

The furious rapture burns me through,

The air brings waves of love to me,

The gods’ hot breath; the sea is blue

Through endless yearning. Alas! poor sea,

I pity thee.

 

For thou art changed from brine to fire,

Whereby the fish that swim in thee

Feel hotly as I the new desire

That burns the nascent soul of me

In fearless glee.

 

* * * * *

 

I dare not sleep for long, for

I Should wake in anguished dream, my sweet,

And wander bare-head ‘neath the sky,

And roam half-raving square and street,

In love’s fierce heat.

 

XVII

 

I

 

A HUNDRED sonnets yesterday took wing,

A thousand lyrics flew,

From out my heart into the glowing sphere

Of blazing golden blue.

Ah, had I then but had the power to sing

What trembled on my lyre

More worthy gift my voice would yield thine ear,

The song of young Desire.

 

II

 

Where old Dieppe smiles by the narrow bay,

I came, from o’er the sea,

And now I strive to let my singing say

Things my heart cannot bide;

Let me not be quite dumb in love’s first flush;

Shyly I tell to thee

The wonder thou hast wrought, lest I should blush

When next I hail thee, Bride.

 

III

 

So, singing in my heart’s gold sunlight still,

I reached the city rare

Where art and life are one; the glorious light

Shone round me everywhere,

And as I rode unto the western hill,

Where the sun sank in flame,

I know my song would outlast all the night,

And with the day it came.

 

XVIII

 

Creep the little shadows

Over all the meadows,

The good green hills I knew of old still hold the steps of me

The sunset in the South

Still smiles upon my mouth

And so I smile, my love, my love, to thee!

 

Oh, I know so well

The water’s floating spell

Over all the greenest hills that ever man has known;

I hold thee where I hold

Sweet wonders manifold,

Since thou hast made them all to be thine own.

 

The southern summers lie

In my heart beneath the sky;

Take all the hoarded gold I found, and spend and spend it still.

Foe thou dwell’st there alone,

My poet, O mine own,

And ever shall thou dwell there at thy will.

 

XIX

 

Here in the City of Light

There are music and wonder for me;

Here in the star-guarded night

Life breaks on the shore of time’s sea.

 

Here in the sun and the spring

The Luxembourg gardens are gay,

And oh! but, my dearest, I sing,

For I am the spring and the day.

 

I have laughed in the temple of God,

I have dreamed in the temple of Man;

Now I am free from the sod;

Priapus hath grown into Pan.

 

I am the spring and the sun,

Thou art the earth and the sea;

Shake fiercely my soul. We are one –

Sing on the bosom of me.

 

Give me thy love and thy strength,

If it be for an age, for an hour.

For alas! we grow old, and at length

We love, and are shorn of love’s power.

 

Oh, I shall see thee to-morrow;

Clasped heart to heart we shall lie

Naked; all day we shall borrow

The space and the spread of the sky.

 

Come, and the day shall be ours,

With music and wonder and me;

Come, and be glad of the flowers

I have plucked from the bosom of thee.

 

There are lilies and burning red roses

That flame and grow strong with desire;

Come thou, ere winter re-closes

The wide brazen gateways of fire.

 

XX

 

We will cross the green-wood and the salty sea;

We will hear the thrushes thrill, the nightingales awake;

We’ll let loose the reins of love until we are so free

That none shall dare to bar our way through sea or hill or brake.

 

Who shall stay our footsteps? who shall call us back?

Who shall quench the light from out the living breasts and eyes?

Ah love, my love, remember to let love’s rein be slack;

Eros is still upon the wing, nor wearies as he flies!

 

XXI

 

Men shall not soon forget,

While deeds of love are done,

The songs that my heart hath set

In rhythm to the pulsing sun:

We are ever one in a golden net,

We are ever and endlessly one.

 

Ah! When we rose to greet,

Did we pierce through the outer gloom?

When our eyes first came to meet,

Did we know of the secret doom

That lay in our hearts, my sweet,

A perilous, tender bloom?

 

There are callings now on the wind,

Sweetheart; I must rise and go,

For the day is far behind,

And the soft night-breezes blow;

They call me out to the starlight blind,

And the pale moon’s wonder-glow....

 

XXII

 

Ages hence, my songs recording,

Now, that here my seal I set;

All time’s shallow stream sure fording,

These my songs shall ease the fret

Of the lovers yet to be

Who have dared a lonely sea.

 

Ages hence, know, this my singing

Sprang from one great secret dawn; -

Onward life is ever winging,

Still to love that life is drawn,

Lovers! ye shall dare to be

Wise, and in your wisdom free.

 

Ages hence – my song grows fainter,

For the light fades from my mind –

Poet, player, singer, painter,

Learn the secret: be not blind.

Know the sign shall set ye free;

Hear the word of mystery.

 

There is a maiden harp-player, and a silver flute is held

In the hands of an hermaphrodite: this thing shall be fulfilled

LIBER XXXVI

THE STAR SAPPHIRE

Let the Adept be armed with his Magick Rood [and provided with his mystic rose]. [1]
In the centre [2], let him give the L.V.X. signs [3]; or if he know them, if he will and dare do them, and can keep silent about them, the signs of N.O.X. [4] being the signs of Puer, Vir, Puella, Mulier. Omit the sign. I.R. [5]
Then let him advance to the East and make the Holy Hexagram [6], saying: Pater et Mater unus deus Ararita. [7]
Let him go round to the South, make the Holy Hexagram [8] and say: Mater et Filius unus deus Ararita. [9]
Let him go round to the West, make the Holy Hexagram [10] and then say: Filius et Filia unus deus Ararita. [11]
Let him go round to the North, make the Holy Hexagram [12] and then say: Filia et Pater unus deus Ararita. [13]
Let him then return to the Centre, and so to The Centre of All (making the Rosy Cross as he may know how) [14] saying Ararita Ararita Ararita [15] (In this the Signs shall be those of Set Triumphant and of Baphomet. Also shall Set appear in the Circle. Let him drink of the Sacrament and let him communicate the same.) [16] Then let him say: Omnia in Duos: Duo in Unum: Unus in Nihil: Haec nec Quatuor nec Omnia nec Duo nec Unus nec Nihil Sunt. [17]
Gloria Patri et Matri et Filio et Filiae et Spiritui Sancto externo et Spiritui Sancto interno ut erat est erit in saecula Saeculorum sex in uno per nomen Septem in uno Ararita. [18]
Let him then repeat the signs of L.V.X. but not the signs of N.O.X.: for it is not he that shall arise in the Sign of Isis Rejoicing.


Notes:

1. The Magick Rood is the magician’s Wand. In this ritual context it is the magician’s erect phallus, the Lingam (penis). The Mystic Rose is the Holy Graal or the Cup of the Priestess, in other words, her kteis, the Yoni (vagina).
2. The centre of the magical circle.
3. The LVX signs: Osiris slain [the Cross]; L: Isis mourning the Swastika; V: Typhon, the trident; X: Osiris risen – the Pentagram.
4. The NOX signs: Puer [Boy], Vir [Man], Puella [Girl], Mulier [Woman].
5. IR: Isis Rejoicing, also known as Mater Triumphans.
6. The Holy Hexagram: East, the Holy Hexagram of Fire, the union of Yod and Heh. [see The Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram in Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice. Also Chapter 69 in ‘The Book of Lies’]
7. ‘Father and Mother One God Ararita’.
8. The Holy Hexagram: South, the Holy Hexagram of Earth, the union of Heh and Vau.
9. ‘Mother and Son One God Ararita’.
10. The Holy Hexagram: West, the Holy Hexagram of Air, the union of Vau and Heh-final.
11. ‘Son and Daughter One God Ararita’.
12. The Holy Hexagram: North, the Holy Hexagram of Water, the union of Heh-final and Yod.
13. ‘Daughter and Father One God Ararita’.
14. The Rosy Cross: The union of the Magick Rood and the Mystic Rose.
15. Ararita: a notariqon of a Hebrew sentence which means: ‘One is His beginning: One is His Individuality: His Permutation is One’.
16. Set is triumphant over Horus, in other words the ‘Horus force’ is expended into the Cup. This ‘eucharist’ is consumed as a sacrament.
17. ‘All in Two: Two in One: One in Nothingness: These are neither Four nor All nor Two nor One nor Nothing’.
18. ‘Glory be to the Father and to the Mother and to the Son and Daughter, and to the Holy Spirit without and within, which was, is, and shall be, world without end. Six in One through the names of Seven in One, Ararita’.

  THE VEIL OF EDEN

BY

BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 



 

illustration by Barry Van-Asten



O long ago, long ago, did I dream

That I had wings and a joyous heart,

And I sang sweet songs over hills that roam,

Of undying love and the eternal star.

Sang as my soul in soft moonlight

Found glorious things in everything,

And rejoiced in the wonder of day and night.

But now the deep echo of my regret

Leaves only my heart to hang and long

For that far twilight where dreams are met

And the heart that's empty of its song...

O pity me, I pray, these, my misgivings:

God love me, and give me back my heart!

God love me, and give me back my wings!

 

 

Part I

The Flower And The Madness

 

 

This, our cosmic stage of sorrow,

This our curtain, lifteth up!

Lift up the veil and therein follow

The glories of love's zenith cup!

 

Through the celestial realm of night

That overthroweth day,

Stars were magical and bright

In their dumb decay.

 

And planets shook to music's mode

By the gods that reach

Through infinite space and abode,

Masterful in speech.

 

And the song of ecstasy was born

To the lips of our goddess.

Yea! her bosom's splendour - dawn,

Sighed with love's madness.

 

With darkness was her hair aflame

With diamonds and with pearls,

That glittered ceaseless, to her name,

Hung soft in shaken curls.

 

But cameth whisperings in halls

As some sick phantom stirred,

For 'tis the veil of Eden falls

At his whispered word.

 

And all the stars were pale and rent

Of light in darkness now;

Those fixed points in the firmament

Wept long in love's sorrow.

 

See! we are but moonbeams cast

Upon some ruinous river

That sweeps beyond the starry vast

Lie of God, for ever.

 

Be life not such a delicate bloom

Of gentleness and sighing,

For thou art fragrant in the tomb

Of the old god, dying.

 

Quick! with thy mortal hands

Break the chain - restriction,

And raise thyself up, love demands

Thou art the resurrection!

 

Sprite: Strike! strike! the chain that binds

 

Chorus: Thy body beautiful unwinds

 

Sprite: Into regions of re-birth

 

Chorus: Unto pleasures of the earth!

 

Sprite: Here, sickness in Eden falls

 

Chorus: Into dark extended halls.

 

Sprite: Would'st thou be saddled with the fear

 

Chorus: That wrappeth round thy manly spear

 

Sprite: And gives thy sister thought to thirst

 

Chorus: Damnation's hunger? Thou accursed

 

Sprite: Universal Lord of lies,

 

Chorus: Man's spirit, hearest, Thou denies!

 

Sprite: Strike! Strike! the chain that binds

Thy body beautiful unwinds

Into regions of re-birth;

Unto pleasures of the earth!

For man hath tired, man's brain is bent

Upon the veil of Eden, rent!

 

Invocation:

 

Come, not when the moon is lying

Low upon thy prow;

Come, not when the rose is sighing

Sweet upon thy brow.

 

Come, by the bud of thy perfection,

Not in thy despair;

Here be the bloom of thy redemption:

Thy synagogue of prayer.

 

For in the words that we remember

Upon our altar - dawn,

We praise the light and praise its keeper

Worshipped by the morn.

 

This sword thrust deep into thy side

Wills midnight's work be done.

Thy wound a token for thy bride

That hast sighed long for devildom.

 

Come! Come! and see thy world

And be not overcome

By the treachery unfurled

On thy brave bosom, numb!

 

And this thy origin revealed,

And this thy regal right,

For thou art sworn to sword and shield

And to thy crown of light.

 

Phoenix rise ye, onward, on

Into the void of flame

Where death is sweet and calls upon

Dread Baphomet, by name:

 

To call upon the ghost of love

And unto its shade sing,

Great prophecies shalt love's ghost prove

By this immortal ring!

 

The Ghost Of Love:

 

I am Love, disfigured, and I bring

Thee tales of misery - my shame,

For love destroyeth everything

That falleth in its name!

 

And what sick fruit from Eden's bowel

Hath nursed thy pains? O man,

What plagues within thy garden, prowl

And speaketh of salvation?

 

What cometh when the rose of knowing

Dieth in thy hand?

It is thine own self, ever growing

In thy wisdom, to expand

 

Thy flesh of sorrow, that here yearneth

With passions that hath bred

The rot within ye; the core that burneth

Unto the soul that's dead.

 

Yea! sayeth of the flower, I,

Ye crusheth in thy fate:

That which is born, is born to die

With lusts immaculate!

 

Sprite: See ye how the dye is cast

 

Chorus: Man's body, beautiful, hath passed

 

Sprite: From its sufferings, from its woe

 

Chorus: And thus must into silence go,

 

Sprite: Into the charnel-house of truth

 

Chorus: The womb of wisdom be his proof!

 

Sprite: Thy body through the pylon, passed

And thy death was sweet,

Ye are but as sepulchral dust

Of death beneath mine feet.

 

Chorus: Let thy flower, lust unfold

Unto the timeless gods of old.

Slain, thy horror shall foretell

What moveth in thee be not Hell.

 

And lips incarnate of desire

Shall burn with subtle flames of fire.

And thy crown that sleepeth - tragedy,

Shall give untold delights to thee!

 

O child of beauty and of chaos;

Child that singeth the song of madness,

Thou art impenetrable in thy tomb

To crush the flower of its bloom.

 

And ye shall sing unto the world

Of thy strange enchantment, curled

From the portal of Eden's dream,

Beyond thy chrysalis, extreme!

 

But thy season be not over yet,

Thy rose-cupped beauty, thy coronet

Still aches for womanhood and her charm

That can breedeth upon thee man, much harm!

 

Sprite: Ah, I see man's heart anew;

I see his immeasurable soul shine through

The fragrant portal of decay,

Where virgin lips hath kissed the day!

 

And this be sorrow for he knows,

This be the madness of the rose

That unfurls to taste the golden dew:

The spring of man's heart born anew.

 

Closer, ye not fear the morn

Of thy tender soul, re-drawn

Into a world that is thy making

And thy sufferings, awakening.

 

Give! Give all! and thou shalt know

Why God feared give ye knowledge so;

For there be sadness in wisdom's joys

When innocence falleth down, and dies.

 

Ah, but what of woman, sayest

Hath she not her part to playest?

Hath not the organism of man's lust

Crumbled before his eyes? I trust

 

Ye see'st the sickness of dimension,

Changed by form into corrosion,

Capable of supernal things

Is man, free from woman's wings.

 

And these be secrets to unfold

When thou redeemest the world of old:

What brute-beast comes in exultation

At damnation's arrival? - Man!

 

..................................................................

 

And the creatures of the wood did sing

In each its special voice of God,

Turned with angered hearts, to sting

The folly of fallen Eden, trod

With madness, in the mire of sin -

Thus, the tragedy within!

 

Chorus: O things of sorrow, O things of mirth,

Silent, is thy freedom cast

Into the abysses of the earth,

On this, our triumphant hour, past

Into glories that displeaseth God,

For in the wind His voice is oft'

Heard to thunder bold and sad

Before the victory cheers, aloft

Call for the mantle that He wears.

And God in ancient wisdom, frail,

And silver-haired sits with His tears

At the tearing of the veil.

 

Sprite: Ah! but what of love?

We think: has it taken stranger?

Some will say that loves knows not

Which of the twain are stronger:

Be it sorrow with its sombre thread

Of deep regret, returning?

Or be it joy, as some hath said,

Cools a heart of yearning?

 

Mask not thy burning germ of fear

In the sentinels that rot

And bear thy burden in good cheer,

Where passion comforts not

The heart of sighing, for as dust

Hath it fallen gladly -

Breathe! Breathe! deep of the lust

That is divine and Godly!

 

This thy right and this thy will,

Shade not thy loves in regret;

Thou hast built a temple, here distil

Its pure force into light and set

Thineself within thine amulet. A shrine

Of consecrated wisdom, sealed

By earthly bread and fiery wine

Is the distant matter of thy brain revealed.

 

Yea! thy crimson death shall be as sweet

That giveth all unto the Lord,

Thine heart shall serve, swift wings shall beat,

Resurrected by the sword.

For man hath built himself a bridge

Void unto void, world unto world;

He standeth at the spectral ridge

With expectations curled

 

Towards the aeons that shall come,

Towards the sounding of the drum,

And the narrow birth of devildom,

Framed by the leprosy of the sun

And the limitations of the Holy One,

For man's argosy hath here begun!

 

Chorus: And dress yea self rich unto God;

Drinketh of His brews, from casks

That flow hearty. Set thee a period:

These thine ordeals and thine tasks,

Measure thine experience and be strong

And man shalt hereby reigneth long!

 

Thy flesh be as a shoreless bark,

A beacon of thy liberty,

That shalt illuminate the dark

By courage and virility!

Let thy prow look only on man's face

And thine helm taste of his sweet disgrace!

 

God of alchemy, God of reason,

Let His blood course through thy veined

Temple. Child of glory, in the season

Of thy paradise regained -

Yea! ye hath raped long of God's sanctuary,

Sweet ark of thy discovery.

 

Sprite: Breathe of midnight's intoxication,

Lift thy limbs upon its shore,

And bow thee down in adulation

Of love, pure love, thou dost adore.

 

This, man's joy and abomination:

Giveth all unto the cup

Of thy ceremony and salvation -

Quench thy thirst and drinketh up!

 

This, thy primal invocation,

This thy will to be declared

Unto the sons of initiation

Who art strong for they hath dared

 

By secret light, their evocation

And by knowledge deemed it so

Wrought with danger, consecration

Giveth strength that they may go!

 

Chorus: What monster passions lie in thy breast?

 

Sprite: 'Tis the fiend of love's unrest.

 

Chorus: Be it of nocturnal fire,

The aspiration of the higher?

 

Sprite: It liveth and it breatheth great

In its crucible of hate!

 

Chorus: Seen ye yet death's wing come near,

In cheerless agonies, appear?

 

Sprite: Death be like the serpent. wise,

His shape is formed fast to disguise;

He breatheth necromantic dung

And sings of fatal heartache, flung

Upon the corpse of youth, ran red:

A grotesque visage of the dead!

Part II

The Serpent And The Sorrow

Here, I fortify the wine of disease

With my liquid tongue of blasphemies.

For I hath wrestled from the sacred bough

The true lusts of man - these seeds I sow;

The dark dimensions, the black centuries,

Unto the wind and watch them grow!

 

I conjure whoredom's flickering flame

And curse the Almighty without shame.

Man, that walketh with the moon

Hath harkened to the immortal tune

And sought the perfume, without name

That's supped by gods and all too soon

 

Consumed in thy cup of amethyst, drained,

Unto the end was its vile filth strained

By mortal lips. Now man hast seen

The beginning, the end and the in-between.

The cup of destruction, red-ruby stained!

The perfume of release - our Queen,

 

Unto Heaven's vault did'st seal

Man's disobedience and conceal

The architecture of man's fate

That strikes at the chains of inviolate

Love, for by wisdom and by zeal

Did man tire of his righteous state.

 

And thus possessed of gods did'st man

Tear down the lie: no mortal can

Be as a god and walk with might

And rejoiceth in the eternal light.

Yet his bosom yearned and stranger, ran

Into the sorrowful realm of regal night.

 

And I am the circumference of thy skin

And all that it containeth within,

For I am fashioned to thy breast

And I swim with poisonous unrest.

I am thine own sorrow and thy sin:

Thy north and south, thine east and west!

 

And many are mine horrors and mine name;

This legion, mirrored, be but the same

Cross of desire in darkness, falling

Unto the circle of lust's calling

Thine golden seraphimed head of shame

That sought the sanctuary. This appalling

 

Pyramid of thine own making

Found ye sorrow for thy taking

And this dim star, thy profile, cast,

Is mine Royal seal, for here at last

Is an apparatus re-awakening:

A man perfected of his past!

 

The Song Of The Serpent:

 

Ah! the fruit is ripe upon the bough:

Shalt desire snatch it from me now

And plant its knowledge on thy brow?

 

And what mystery of flesh shalt sing

When unto man falls everything?

But lo! 'tis more given when 'tis nothing!

 

Yea! for all of man's temptation,

The fool regreteth not his action:

This is his sorrow and salvation;

 

This is his rapture that is sweet,

Soft and fragrant and complete:

But when shalt man with serpent meet

 

And caress the dim shore of his pain

And break the rhythms of his brain

That's circled by a serpent's chain?

 

When this night of mitred elegance

In its fleet-footed pageant dance

Doth ache to passion's darkling glance,

 

That shoots through youthful veins of fear,

For here, love lingers long and drear

Before the God, Love doth revere,

 

Thou shalt shame thy God before thine eyes,

Thou shalt conjure His immortal cries

And damn His sacerdotal sighs!

 

O blow wind, yea! eternally blow

For speech and shame and sin follow

The endless summit of man's tomorrow.

 

But life's miracle that we dare expand,

This tortured madness of command

Hath given scope to understand

 

The nature of desire, that slept

Firm in thought as sadness leapt

Where the soul of Eden wept.

 

And thrice was beauty turned to stone,

Banished from her golden throne

To lie with lustful ways, alone.

 

She dreams, but nothing more than this

Hath fallen unto sleep, to kiss

The awful ache of our mistress.

 

And mortal unto dying breath

Shalt find a certainty in death,

That death shalt all too sooneth cometh!

 

..................................................................

 

I see thy wound, it runneth deep

Through the centuries of sleep;

Deep, deep, so vast and deep

In the fiery fathomless place of sleep.

 

This little world of man's content;

This infernal fold of past desires,

Death's rapture clings to his element:

Man unto the arm of man aspires.

 

Here death's feather hath weighed ye right,

And judgement manifold, thy fate

Upon the lips that kissed the night;

Lips of thine own incarnate hate.

 

Lips that cursed the ancient moon;

Lips of thine unspeakable hell,

Pressed to the prison of the womb

Of thine resurrecting angel.

 

He giveth up and giveth all,

He rejoiceth in his sad suspension

That dances, beast-like in the hall

And clings to man's incomprehension.

 

O come, I adore thee, come O come

While death's scent hath found release

From the pangs of falsehood's angeldom,

And the terrors, pray ye now may'st cease!

 

Sprite:

 

But hark! what vision of loveliness doth tread

Between the living and the dead?

What frenzy of lust doth speak its name;

What salacious mollusc, revered by shame

Doth come? Its robe cast in the mud,

Its high art a stain of womanhood,

Purple, from the fount of Hell

Like some magnificent Jezebel.

And as nature bows before our Queen;

As the elements flicker, and stir unseen

She assumes Her Royal right, anon,

And comes before us - Babalon!

 

Babalon:

 

Blessed be midnight, blessed be shame;

Blessed be the paps that seal my name.

Blessed be the season of desire:

Blessed the unquenchable Holy fire!

This head be death's head, reared for war,

This heart be rotten to its core.

Witch of the moon, whore of the sun:

I am the ghost bloom - Babalon!

I am thy work of silk and gold;

I am thy mysteries untold.

My lips, the claret of the moon;

My breath, the scent of sweet perfume.

My limbs as lithe as panthers, move

Through the Holy abodes of love,

For I am thy midnight jubilation:

Thy dawn, thy noon and thy dusk damnation.

My hair, a stream of lust, unending,

My body yearns to thy ascending

Light; thy palace remains unmoved -

I see it ever thus, unloved.

For I am love, cloaked in desire,

Rich and strange, I burn with fire.

And I desecrate the Holy place

And trample the contours of God's face.

I am thy tempest mind, awake

To bloodless sighings of the snake.

I bear the cup of fornication

That gives thee sweet intoxication.

I, the Queen, who doth assume

Thy purple passions, to illume

Thy body, levelled in the tomb,

Clung to the flower of my womb.

Thou did'st seekest, yet I was found not

In those shapes of shade that rot

Thy hungering, for doth not ye see:

I hath always dwelt in the heart of thee;

Since virgin, thy initial breath

Smote the catacombs of death

And drew forth thine eyes unto the sun,

Ye whispered one word - Babalon!

 

Sprite:

 

And through the intricacies of sleep

Doth Babalon in Her whoredom, creep,

To rise on smoke, foul of the air,

Her teeth fixed firm on flesh, to tear

The heart of man, from out his breast,

Softened to Her glance, caressed

By slender hands that woo with lust

And grind the humble into dust.

O star! my litany of desire,

Desolate in seduction's mire

To see thy nakedness crowned with gold

Upon Love's altar, where of old

Did'st Babalon cherish unto death,

The ache of man that lies beneath

The splendour wrapt, the sapphire tomb

Of virtue veiled deep in Love's gloom.

 

Babalon:

 

O desirable man, I give thee rest

From thy hierophantic quest;

I warm thy flesh and give thee ease,

Trimmed in the wrappings of disease,

Where nothing moves, nor shall it stir

The masked sentinels of sleep and fear.

 

Sprite:

 

Animal-sighing - we are all dark now

As man passes into that which he cannot know!

 

Part III 

 The Eye In The Sanctuary

 

In the phosphorescent hush of the dark wood,

Came Eve, that delicate blush of womanhood;

Her body, an ecstasy of celebration:

A temple of song that she sings of creation!

But her eyes hang sad for the veil is rent;

She weeps for she can foresee man's discontent.

And here passes the star, in its sickness, grown

Awful before the meteor that was God's throne;

Where there once was passion, dark and deep,

Radiant by night, where the light doth keep

Its vigil strong. Gone, O 'tis all gone now

Where woman walks alone and weeps unto her shadow.

Her heart a stone cast in the pit of motherhood,

Lost unto the shades where she weeps within the wood.

Thus tormented she sees things fate hast chose to be,

This be the song sweet Eve sings of man's destiny.

 

Sprite:

 

And having tasted of desire

She swooned at the unspeakable rites

Foretold in a vision of the higher

Realms of angels and of sprites.

 

Thus, her eyes drawn unto fire,

She sang as sighing satellites

Perished in the unalterable mire

Of mightier things in their delights.

 

Struck with beauty, sang the choir

From their heavenly heights;

But blood lust gave the great destroyer

His joy amongst the parasites.

 

Eve:

 

And I saw thus blazing from the hordes,

The shining ones come forth and listen

With bloody hands clasped on mighty swords,

Upon the emerald hilts that glisten

Radiantly at their armoured sides.

These winged warriors with giant strides

 

Came to rest beside a stream,

The fight not lost, though their eyes told

The light had'st lost God's brilliant gleam,

For eyes were as the darkness, cold;

Like lunar lamps, and all put out

As shadows fell to unseen doubt.

 

And Paradise raged against God's Law

At the full rise of the sun,

Where the beauteous bankside maidens saw

The light retreateth into one.

And here were stars in the folds of sorrow

As darkness came down, thick and low.

 

And morning light did'st turn his head

Aloft unto God's mighty throne

And back upon the field of dead

Celestial seraphims of stone:

Come home! Come home! His pitiful voice

And all the dim stars did'st rejoice!

 

Our saviour crosseth on the prow,

Watched by darkness at the helm;

With names of blasphemy on His brow,

He surveyed the measure of His realm.

His broken sword aloft, He swore

To reverseth all God madeth Law!

 

And God's voice did'st tremble in the wind

Unto shameless sinners and the sinned:

Make why thou wilt, my brother son,

For 'tis writ that there shalt cometh one

To un-good the good that I hath done

Unto this Paradise begun.

 

Thy broken wings of undying hate

Are folded in combustible fate;

Where the zenith hath appeared too late

To save the Kingdom that falleth great!

Thou may'st have thy rule, thy period

Where thou may'st strut thyself a God,

 

But lo! as from a lightening rod

Shalt God's word find thy Kingdom shod

In filthy labourings of the dead:

A crown of thorns upon thy head

Shalt bloom no more, for it hath bled

The terrors of the tomb ye fed.

 

...........................................................

 

And the muse of all time sat in wonder

As dark, those ones of evil, born,

Tore the brotherhood of Light asunder,

Terrible to that scarlet dawn

Where the phoenix of the flames had'st flown

In the splendour of damnation's crown.

 

And within the city of soulless slaves

Were vast pyramids of corpses, lying

Skinless, shovelled into graves

Of red streams unto midnight, sighing;

Here man in fear of his true fate

Did'st pray to terrors, insensate.

 

And the filth of an hundred days of war

Had'st spoilt six days upon the earth;

Death's cloud did'st appear to blot the star

And violate its swift re-birth.

Iron death and scent of skin

Had'st let infernal darkness in!

 

From the night our master fell

And in war's wake the moon had'st turned

With fastened lips - a sunlit Hell

As victory in death's madness yearned

Unto man's cerements of fear:

Lo! the goat-foot God was here!

 

And man breathed fire and man breathed force

Throughout the depths of eternity,

And God revealed His unholy course

For man and woman's destiny.

And woman sighed, sealed in the tomb

For she was as blind within its gloom.

 

Her love, shalt creaseth to the moon

And man's unto the sun

Where he shalt sheathe his splendid plume

In sorrow's fruitless womb,

Where demon lusts slays, without pause:

Man, in the calamity of its jaws.

 

And love divided, conquered all,

Arose damnation on its head

That whispered softly, Eden's fall

Was thrice glimpsed and thrice blessed!

And this thy pleasaunce and thy shore

God giveth greatly to adore.

 

And tears shalt wash away the work

Of God whose mind cannot contain

The will to penetrate the murk

That clouds upon the human brain,

Where imagination and the dream

Be thus like fishing in the stream.

 

Man long betrayeth for he hath wronged

The omnipotent eye that all doth see

The myriad miscarriages, triple-tongued

In sad songs sung in serpentry.

Yet came the lone voice from afar

Curled towards that elusive star:

 

Hast thou seen the lion loveth the lamb?

Hast thou seen the hawk loveth the hare?

Hast thou seen the she-wolf loveth the ram?

Hast thou seen man weak in woman's snare?

 

And his shadow shalt darken and grow with time

Before the threshold of the dawn

That shalt awaken him to the sublime

Seeds of sorrow, upon him, born;

Unto the dying of the old year

Wilt man wait, and beauty re-appear!

 

 

Part IV

The Blossom And The Sigh

 

From this holy place I go

Unto a wilderness unknown;

Unto a place where love, outgrown,

Lies barren, for it cannot grow.

Here, the spirit of silent birth

Hath thundered long unto the sea,

And virtue thrown to devilry

Is all that purity is worth.

For upon this world mankind doth tread

'Twixt an everlasting faint dimension

And things beyond man's comprehension;

Beyond the living and the dead.

Yet what bright moon on the horizon

Will sail the oracles of space

And revealeth love's eternal face?

In measure met - all things are one,

The Lord of Life hath wished it so;

For He gaveth man his opposite,

His dual expression - black and white.

And time and spasmodic change shall flow

As the body yields to spring passions

And there, breathe life - it breatheth yet,

Strong by nature's calling, set

Into a robe of dreams - man's visions

Are life's remembrance of the dead.

The stars are sown, the torn veil rent

And the Host of the Heavenly sacrament

Fell tearful at man's side and said:

Enough of unholiness and of death,

For all that liveth in vain, shalt sing

Of life's beauty over everything!

Thus, the great lie of man, beneath

The starry sadness of Heaven, drawn

Unto soft whisperings that revealed

Nothing in joy is twice concealed

By woman, at her darkling dawn.

And time wilt cease for moonlight priests

At the extinguishing of the light,

For darkness be their God of might;

A continual conjuring of strange beasts

That come, by Royal sacrifice

To trample hooves in tribal dust;

To work their foul alluring lust

And in the madness found - rejoice.

On the Holy mount shalt man seek

The glory of his radiant star

That hath retreated, and gone far

From the ceremonies of the meek.

Here shalt corpses come to lie -

The glory of our loved dead:

Every one a good man's head

Unstirred by the blossom and the sigh!

And God hath cast thy fortunes great

Into scented halls of hate;

This be thy mannequin of woe

For the elements hath found ye so

Rich in joy on wings of sadness:

Thou art sent scrying into madness!

And with thine new-found love, retrace

Thine footsteps to the Holy place

And supplicate thine self in prayer!

 

Sprite: But soft! here I invoketh to thee - Air!

 

Air:

 

I am loud and silent: I am Air;

I am the words of war and prayer,

On streams to carry love and hate

Drawn from hearts both small and great!

And I am flattery which is joy;

I am thy breath, I am thy sigh.

And I make tempests of thy bones

When mine rough winds upon thee moans.

Within, without, I am the storm

Of change, thy progress without form!

 

Chorus:

 

O carry, carry, wings of Air

Man in his boat adrift, despair;

Seeketh still man, of the higher...

 

Sprite: Here, I invoketh to thee - Fire!

 

Fire:

 

I am thine inmost: I am Fire;

I am thy flower of desire.

I am thy flickerings, set in pain:

Thine serpent of unsaintly reign!

And I bring joy and ease and love

From under the cloak of lust, I move,

Ever burning, though, thee be still -

I goeth onwards in thine thrill

Of ecstasy, that in thee be

Flames of uncontainable devilry!

 

Chorus:

 

O burn, burn, thy flames of Fire

Unto man's heart that doth aspire;

Thy love, thy melancholy rapture...

 

Sprite: Here, I invoketh to thee - Water!

 

Water:

 

I am thine thought: I am Water;

Thy mother, thy bride, thy Holy daughter.

I am thy wanderings that resteth not;

Thine river that ever disturbs thy lot!

And I am the flow of fate, foresee

Thine own miracle of thy destiny.

And I be calm and showeth the moon

Or whipped by tempest and typhoon

That turn thee swift upon thine will

Unto mine waters - magical!

 

Chorus:

 

O roll, roll, thy Waters sweet

Over man's brow in defeat

And strike thy pleasing chords of mirth!

 

Sprite: Here, I invoketh to thee - Earth!

 

Earth:

 

I am thine form: I am Earth;

I am thy firmament of birth!

I am thine glories and thine fear,

Slow of change, I doth appear

Dull and heavy, I confess

I am the vacuum of thy stubbornness.

I am thy surface, point and plane -

I am the laughter in thy pain.

I am thy dream of lips unmet:

Yea! I, the spectre of regret!

 

Chorus:

 

O fold, fold, Earth manifold,

Thy temple stones, thy bed of old

Upon man's boundless breast, and sit...

 

Sprite: Here, I invoketh to thee - Spirit!

 

Spirit:

 

I am thine core: I am Spirit;

I seize thee by thy brain and will it

To mine works that centre thee;

To thine masked wonder: Liberty!

And I be stirred and moved by song

For I am the fortunes of the strong

Soul that sleeps and wakes once more:

I am thine entity to adore!

Mine kisses giveth endless joy

For they be sweetness to thy sigh.

 

Chorus:

 

O kiss, kiss, Spirit bliss,

The lips of man that doth caress

Passion's ardour and repents...

 

Sprite: Here endeth the song of the elements!

 

 

Part V

The Angel And The Abyss

 

Shall the lie of God be told;

Shall His mysteries unfold

And swell thy bosom to victory

That thou hast sipped of His glory?

And this be rapture in thy brain;

This be thy star, risen and slain

And risen, once more into light

That once was darkness of the night.

That once was far beyond thee, cast

Into the formless void, so vast,

For 'twas the wrappings of the tomb;

Thine pasture of nocturnal gloom

That leads thee here. What visions tell

Why thy lusts are darkness, drawn from Hell;

Thy lie of madness and desire -

Thy penetrating star of fire?

Thou hast slipped thy fetters, see them fall

And unto thine own Angel, call.

Thy bondage broken by a kiss;

Thy liberty strong in rapture's bliss.

Ah, but what hath made thee so?

What pause in thy eternal ring

Hath brought misfortune's silver sling

And dealt thy heart a mighty blow?

 

Chorus:

 

Draw back thy flesh;

Hold back thy veil:

Hail! unto thine Angel, hail!

 

Sprite: Speaketh monster!

 

Angel:

 

I magnify man's little sorrows

Into steps of doom;

I bringeth the Abyss, that swallows

Thy radiant bloom.

 

In this thy park of discontent,

Ever at thy side

Was thine Angel - thy sacrament

Of fire, long denied.

 

Thou art risen on the wings of fate

That leadeth ye aright.

O sire! be not ye desolate

And forsaken in mine sight,

 

For thou walketh as a god, new-born

In thy robe, aflame;

Thou art glorious in the distant dawn

In thy crown of shame!

 

I sing of thine own sweet embraces

That in thine heart doth grow;

For 'twas in those wild abandoned places -

There I loved ye so!

 

Sprite:

 

Thou hast seen thine opposite attract

Itself to thee in every act.

Thou hast glimpsed thy birthright, from afar:

Thy flame-flecked wisdom of the star!

 

Chorus: Hail! unto thine Angel, hail!

 

Sprite:

 

Thou cometh swift from restless sleep

Into casms, dark and deep.

But lo! thine Angel, more must speak,

Soft and low - 'tis very weak!

 

Chorus: Hail! unto thine Angel, hail!

 

Angel:

 

If in sleep thou dreamest, I come to thee

In love's unfolding of the unseen,

Be ye ever a sun that burns, serene,

To die in the arms of eternity...

 

Sprite:

 

Hear ye Adam! these words are gold

Rushing through thy veins! Unhold

Thy feared forebodings, be as one:

Dimensionless unto the sun!

Here, the inhabitant of the Abyss

Summons ye to its nothingness!

 

The Dweller Of The Abyss:

 

Adam, Adam, come, not linger,

Come with Royal lips aflame;

Fear not the song, thou art the singer

Robed and crowned in Adam's name.

 

Adam, Adam, there be sweet joy

In all thou givest unto love:

Joy be the heart of man and boy

That sings thy praises from above.

 

Adam, Adam, fruit of God's labour,

Thou art not condemned by God;

Loveth thyself and damn thy neighbour;

Maketh madness thy method!

 

Adam, Adam, breathe salvation,

Redeem the urges of the beasts

That elevate their jubilation

In sacred rites and forest feasts.

 

Adam, Adam, raise thyself up

And seekest thou swift brotherhood,

In damnation and the cup

That thou hast drained dry of its blood!

 

Adam, Adam, fear not thy shame,

Fear not the wind that carries thee

Into strange places, thou art the flame

Of fortune and of sorcery.

 

Adam, Adam, thy flesh is bold;

Thine heart hast run its course of lust.

A mirror of thyself, behold,

Is what thou seekest in the dust!

 

Adam, Adam, hide not thy tears

For this sweetness, come to pass;

Thine is the Kingdom that ye steers

'Twixt thine Angel and Abyss!

 

Sprite:

 

Ah! 'tis like a broken bone

That love disgraced, before it fell

To find its roots are firm in Hell,

Where two mortal souls are thrown.

For the great adulteress hath begun

The unison of the moon and sun,

And its fulfilment shalt be done:

Hark! how the whore was saved and won!

 

 

Part VI

How The Whore Was Saved And Won

 

 

Lilith, on Her mighty air

Hath led the way through darkness, where

She lay Her flesh and cast Her spell

And showed man mortal, lusts of Hell.

In dream, spoke She unto the son

To show the Whore both saved and won.

And She sang of the mysteries that unite

The eternal darkness and the light.

For the Lord of Night sits oft' astride

The infernal sadness of His bride

And blasphemes nature with His lust

To abide with devils and with dust.

His bride, the Whore, sick to Her breast

Found no ease in sleep nor rest,

Till one night, in the leafy shade

Came footsteps nearer, unafraid,

For 'twas the Lord of Day, that came

To witness Night with Whore in shame.

And in Day's hand a mighty sword

Was drawn and raised without a word;

'Twas thrust into the heart of Night,

Thrust with all His regal might

That split the Lord of Night in twain -

From head to toe, the Night was slain!

And as the thunder clouds rolled by

The Lord of Day looked to the sky,

While Whore sang sweet beneath the beast

Of Night, to gaze on Her saviour priest.

And She rose and danced and kissed His feet

With gentle kisses that were sweet.

 

Whore:

 

My Lord, my Lord, this very night,

Day hath turned my darkness light!

I who loved each maid and man

With all the skill of an artisan;

I who conjured man from boy

And dashed his dreaming with a sigh,

For 'twas the love that carried me

Into the doomed realms of devilry.

 

Lord Of Day:

 

Thou art the harlet of the world, it's Whore;

The fount of all splendour to adore!

Thou were shameless before all men,

Returned to shame and shame again.

Through the spring and summer air

Did'st thou in thy purple, perfumed lair

Stain with blasphemies, thy cup

And bid the goat god drink it up!

Autumn, winter, came and went

And still thou stolest thy sacrament.

 

Whore:

 

O how mine womb sings in the night

Sweet songs of love and songs of fright!

For I am but an instrument of man's desire,

And man is but a stringed bow to my fire.

 

Lord Of Day:

 

O, my thrice-blessed daughter of Hell

That hath sighed through aeons...I cannot tell

Why my path hath led me here

In priestly mock that's thread with fear.

For I gaze upon thy limbs that wrought

Joy to life and death, unsought.

And I ache with passions, born anew,

For thou see'st, I am but mortal too!

And here, beside the Night in twain,

He of dark appetites and of pain,

I hunger thine unamed caress

That foldeth fear within thy kiss.

O harpy of infinitesimal lust,

Thy body is as dust and dung;

A chariot of disgust that must

Wield by magic, thy foul tongue.

Crescent form and lissome limbed:

Thou hast seen the bloom of midnight dimmed!

 

Whore: Nay my Lord, for see, I blush.

 

Lord Of Day:

 

How I long to hold thee near, and crush

Thy soft bruised flesh, and kiss it sweet,

And feel thine heart upon mine beat.

For 'tis madness that within me lies

And yearns to thine cup that destroys.

 

Whore:

 

I see thine passions runneth deep:

Thine sting of holiness doth sleep!

Mine change was swift - see how it turns

Unto Whoredom's grip that burns!

My breasts are ripe with motherhood

Where beauty's flame hath flickered in;

Veiled with roses and with blood:

I hath long been the Queen of Sin!

Mine limbs doth ache, mine heart be tired;

Mine flesh is soft, yet weak and sore.

Flames of passion hath I fired

In this sacred vessel known as Whore!

Beggar, Prince, wench and King -

To all hath I sworn my lusts to sing!

By streams hath I lain with beast and brute;

To poets, strummed soft on lyre and lute.

In chambers hath I soiled with bliss

Mankind's threefold consciousness

That unlocked the gates that case the womb

To reveal the glories of the tomb.

A flower, cursed and midnight, dead,

By morn shall resteth on his head.

With flames I coil and weep and sing

To the ecstasy of lust's everlasting spring.

But I see thou art cold to nocturnal pain;

Those tongues of fear hath dulled thy brain,

Yet wine is sweet! My Lord, cometh near,

Be ye not afraid of regions drear,

And when next thou see'st the sun goeth down

Thou shalt bear the sceptre and the crown!

 

Sprite:

 

Child of thy bowel, the war is near won:

See'st how the moon lookest to the sun!

 

.....................................................................

 

And the Lord of Day remained all night

In the arms of Whoredom, painted white

As the pure snow driven, soft and deep

Upon abominations that will not sleep.

 

Whore:

 

O my Lord, how art thou weak;

How art thou senseless in thy reign.

Thou hast planted wisdom on mine cheek,

I hath invoked horror in thy brain,

And defiled the holy seed of man

To bronze his passion in the womb

And sin unto the Holy Lamb.

Yea! I hath sheathed his purple plume

In depths unutterable, till it blooms

Where rose and lily fold as one.

And limbs are still in crimson tombs

Now the dark God's work's near done!

But hush, dost thou not hear mine womb burst

Into song, now quenched of thirst?

 

Sprite:

 

Harketh! dost thou hearest the moan of Hell

Rise in triumphant madrigal?

 

Chorus:

 

It be the solar rays of light:

It be the lunar washed of white!

 

Whore:

 

I am the horror of thy bowel;

I am the obscene whorings, come

By fragrances both fair and foul,

For I am corruption and the sum

Of man's extension into shame,

That shall by fear and bliss, enflame

Thy brain, by copulation's bud

And disintegrate thy nakedness

And giveth thee to brotherhood

In the excreta of excess!

 

 

Part VII

The Holy Place

 

Sprite:

 

And thus the tragedy is revealed:

Vir puris cunni - Adam's shield

That shineth golden, from afar

To light the darkness as a star.

 

Chorus:

 

Cometh, yea! above all this

Lies thy destiny. Thou hast seen

The sacred sword that lies between

Thine Angel and thine Abyss.

Goeth unto the realm of light

And kiss the apex of the night!

 

Sprite:

 

And by thrice moons was Eden rent

Of manhood's self-slain element!

 

Adam:

 

Eve, fair Eve, be thou not afraid

Of God's cruel wonder - night and day

Where sin and shame in the same shade play.

Oft' I hath seen its beauty laid

Upon a tear-stained marble mount

Within the sanctuary of unrest;

Where forest beasts lie breast to breast

And taste of knowledge from the fount

Of life and death. But tremble not

At the sword of light I wield,

For hath I not this golden shield

To reflect the agony of Eden's rot?

And changed, thus far, I must retreat

Unto the dark forest, and there find

A love that be not of thy kind

That gives mine flesh to comforts, great.

 

Eve, fair Eve, knowest I loved thee,

Yet now, cannot I, my sweet, conceive

How born of Adam's rib, my Eve

Should'st be so blind she cannot see

That God, in all His grace, that blessed

And gaveth man breath, created pure,

Should'st fasten woman to some fleshy core

And wake the elements from their rest.

O dark this love, and of God's flock

Hath come by different waters, gay;

Hath wished the gentleness away

And sought the pains thou did'st unlock.

 

Eve:

 

O Adam, weep not for thy sighing,

O Adam, curse not the unknown night,

For I see the day upon thee dying

And darkness where there once was light...

 

Adam:

 

Hush! for the ache of flesh is pain:

I desire mine maker's hands again!

 

Eve:

 

O Adam, I hath long here dwelt

And known thy pains and always felt

That what thou seekest is wrong by God:

Thou treadest not the path He trod!

I fear for thee and almost wish

Thou had'st thy way with eager flesh,

For I cannot giveth, all ye seek:

I cannot offer shame my cheek

And lie with sin. O what thou art

Hast wounded me within mine heart.

 

Adam:

 

O Eve, fair Eve, I am strong, yet weak,

Thou hast all within thee that I seek,

Yet I asketh thee not, for truth it be,

Mine body will not yield to thee.

And I am cursed to walk alone;

To shame myself before God's throne.

As mortal to immortal, met

To find His liquid gaze is set

Upon the flesh that breadeth shame:

Upon the body without name.

This in mine heart, shalt not be moved

Till unalterable love is found and loved!

I must away to solitude

And retreateth from this painful mood

And give mine lusts a stronger bough

To shelter fancy's fear of now.

For I hath buried the lone star of desire

Deep in the whiteness of the snow;

I hath felt its burning light expire

In sorcery, and sleepless, I go

Unto the sword of Liberty's light. I give

All that I hath that I may live!

 

.................................................................

 

And Adam was wrought with lust

And rage and sickness,

For the sweet perfume and

The darkling caress.

And great citadels of shame were his

Shadows erect in the Abyss.

Yet what untold horrors lie in wait

For Adam on the path of fate?

 

Serpent:

 

O fate, draw back thy bow

And sing, sing long thy virtuous note

That purity's thought cannot know

For thou art ever concealed and remote.

In thy bleak simplicity - tremble

And let thine arrows pierce

Unto man's universe and dissemble

With actions subtle, swift and fierce.

Break the harmony that is sorrow,

Go, go with thy lustre, look

On man's dawn and man's tomorrow

Where thine arrows hath with beauty struck

The chambers of his dim lit reign.

Here be sadness, for the bud

Of spring rejoiceth long in pain -

Thy rose hath drowned in brotherhood!

 

Adam:

 

O mother earth, what pains I see

To carry this dread misery

That in me burns both day and night -

Lust, in all its colours, bright!

And in seasons pass, I alone:

Would'st to God mine heart were stone!

I lie in fate and lie with truth

For stars of Heaven be my roof

As onward unto welcome breast

Is my perfection and my rest;

Where strong arms gently fold around

The limitless wonders they hath found;

To feel the ache of thighs caressed,

Kissed by lips that hath never kissed.

 

Serpent:

 

O see the sun upon thee frame

The flowered passion of thy name.

This, thy music serves thee well

Before the throne of Raphael.

This, thy guiding light of Hell

Before the throne of Michael.

This, thy sufferings that doth swell

Before the throne of Gabriel.

This, thy heartache that doth tell

Before the throne of Uriel.

 

Adam:

 

'Tis myself grown dim, for I am dust,

Cursed by the ache of brotherhood's breast:

Wine be mine poison, bread be mine shame

And burn the flesh of sin with flame!

 

Serpent:

 

What devil this of thy construction?

Let nature's course, divine, compete -

To lie with death is thy destruction:

Thou must tasteth the bitter and the sweet!

Thy downfall? Never! thou art uplifted

Unto the rose of God, divine.

The scent of greatness, here hath drifted:

Speaketh not of bread nor wine.

 

....................................................................

 

And his skin that longs for love anew

Shalt weary where desire breaks through,

And Adam in his loneliness

Shalt reflect on his lost gentleness.

But he is young and unafraid

Of what the Gods upon him laid -

The fear of man, the weight of God

That strikes night with His blasting rod.

Break Adam, break, all concentred hate

For thy flesh and for thy fate.

 

Adam:

 

In fields of Eden will I dream

The hands that built me, slew me.

Through this foul sleep, I resteth not

Mine dark seed - O how art

Thou sighing for brotherhood...sighing!

 

Serpent:

 

Pity not ye man of sighing

For the old moon that is dying.

This thy Kingdom thou hast won:

Be strong! thus thine will be done!

 

Eve:

 

Mine womb be as the desert sands

Scorched by an everlasting sun;

Mine garden foldeth in mine hands:

No rose on the horizon!

Yet mine womb doth sing, though barren be,

For 'tis half the fruit of humanity.

Yea! life upon the earth - awake!

To beauty, to mine child - the snake!

 

...............................................................

 

Epilogue:

 

On Eden's veil did'st man caress

The splendour of his nakedness.

The wine of life was his true goal;

The crushing arrows of his soul,

And that which stained God's pure creation

Was Hell's thrice-formed abomination.

For love had'st soughtest he the most:

His desire for the Holy Ghost.

His sword thrust to the heart of reason -

Thus was man's fall Eden's treason.

And faith in liberty and in light

Crowned by the dyad of the night.

Yet freedom cameth from afar,

Beyond the radiating star

That giveth truth unto the soul;

That giveth will to what we are!

And so in many splendid ways

Did'st man desireth of its rays

To light the Kingly regions, dim

O'ershadowed by the seraphim,

Who keepeth the secret of the fire,

Saddled with its strange desire -

But man is born to seek new things

In his earthly wanderings.

And now that man hath been ordained

Unto the highest sanctuary,

Let splendour in his heart be framed

By Love and Light and Liberty!

For he hath crossed that great divide

That separateth God from man;

He hath distilled pure from the void -

The universal organ!

Speech shalt flameth that within

And destroyeth that which lies without;

His noble brow shalt look on sin

With no shame, no fear and no doubt!

 

Sprite:

 

Looketh! see how man hurries in

To see his evil seedlings sprout!

 

The End

 

CHOKMAH DAYS – A SUMMARY

 

LISTING THE OFFICERS OF THE

GREAT BIRTH OF THE MAGUS

by Audrarep

‘The Grade of Magus is traditionally connected with the idea of the number 2; male creative energy, wisdom and the expression of a single idea in terms of duality. It transmits the idea of the divine unity to its feminine counterpart, the understanding, somewhat as a man transmits the essence of his racial character to his wife so that he perceives his inmost nature, itself unintelligible to him directly, by observing the flowering of that essence in his son. The Hebrew title of the idea embodying these characteristics is Chokmah, whose numerical value is 73. This fact appears arbitrary and irrelevant; but it forms part of the symbolic language in which the praeterhuman intelligences who control the initiate communicate with him. Thus, my adventures in America seemed a series of stupidities for a long time. Nothing I did produced the expected results. I found myself suddenly switched from one episode to another so irrationally that I began to feel that I had somehow got into a world where causality did not obtain. The mystery only became clear when analysis disclosed that the events which threw me about in this manner occurred at almost exact intervals of 73 days, or of some multiple or sub-multiple thereof. I understood from this that 73 terrestrial days made up a single day of initiation. As soon as I had grasped this singular fact, I was able to interpret each such period by considering how its events influenced my spiritual development.’ [Confessions. Chapter 81]

Crowley’s initiation between 1914 and 1919 is documented in his magical diary Liber LXXIII ‘The Urn – the Diary of a Magus’ which is a sequel to ‘The Temple of Solomon the King’ in The Equinox, and also detailed in ‘The Magical Records of the Beast 666’ by Symonds and Grant.

During July Crowley had been climbing in Switzerland in preparation for a third expedition attempt in the Himalayas in 1915. However Austro Hungary declared war on Serbia on Tuesday 28th July and Crowley had to cut short his climbing trip. He descended the Jungfrau by the Rothsthal to Berne. Crowley was still in Switzerland on Saturday 1st August when Germany declared war on Russia. Crowley took a train to Paris where he stayed for one week before returning to London. No sooner had he arrived when he had an attack of phlebitis with thrombosis of his left leg which left him bed-ridden for six weeks following Sunday 6th September to around Sunday 11th October. It was unfortunate as it meant he was unable to serve his country in the war.
His first recorded magical act in ‘Rex de Arte Regia’ (The King on the Royal Art) occurs on Thursday 3rd September 1914 with a ‘respectable married woman’ named Marie Maddingley. Then on Sunday 6th September (recovering from his phlebitis) he sees a ‘Piccadilly prostitute’ named Christine Rosalie Byrne (‘Peggy Marchmont’).
Wednesday 14th October: Leila Waddell assisted Crowley and a ‘chorus girl’ named Violet Duval in a magical operation to heal his leg: ‘At this time my leg is still very swollen and obstinate. I have been dressed and about for 3 days, but it was a decided risk to perform the ceremony. After so long abstinence, too, it was swift and easy going; but the will seemed concentrated. It has at least loosened my brain, which had been clogged for 3 or 4 days.’ [Rex de Art Regia: The Magical Record of the Beast 666. Symonds and Grant]. Three days later Crowley saw great improvement in his leg and was able to get ‘about much as usual’.
On Saturday 24th October 1914, Crowley sailed from Liverpool for the USA on the Lusitania and arrived in New York on Sunday 1st November. He stayed briefly at the Hotel Wolcott, 4 West 31st Street before moving to 40 West 36th Street.

DAY I

Tuesday 3rd November 1914-Thursday 14th January 1915

Sunday 1st November: ‘The symptoms are still not altogether vanished. But most assuredly some three days after the rite I had the feeling of health – an indescribable but well-known sensation. I began many energetic things, made up my mind, and here I am in New York.’ [Rex de Art Regia: The Magical Record of the Beast 666. Symonds and Grant].
Thursday 12th November: Crowley sold some of his books to the American lawyer and book collector John Quinn (1870-1924).
Friday 13th November: Crowley met with George Winslow Plummer (1876-1944) the Supreme Magus of the Societas Rosicruciana in America.
Saturday 14th November 10.30-11.30 p.m.: Elsie Edwards.
Saturday 21st November: ‘The most anxious solicitude fails to discover any fault in the leg. This is a month earlier than the doctor’s prognostic.’ [Rex de Art Regia: The Magical Record of the Beast 666. Symonds and Grant].
Monday 23rd November: Grace Harris.
Sunday 29th November: Crowley gives a lecture on Buddhism. He was asked to give several lectures on religious and magical subjects. His leg was still giving him pain but on the whole his health was much better.
Tuesday 1st December: Grace Harris.
Sunday 6th December: Crowley gives a lecture on Magick at 32 West 58th Street.
Sunday 13th December 2.35 p.m.: Grace Harris.
Tuesday 15th December: Crowley dined with John Quinn who bought another collection of books from him. 11.40 p.m. Lea Dewey, ‘Dutch prostitute’.
Thursday 17th December: Crowley received $500 from John Quinn for the books.
Wednesday 23rd December: Crowley wrote the ‘psalms’, ‘The Holy Hymns to the Great Gods of Heaven’. 8.07 p.m. Grace Harris.
Sunday 27th December 11.40 p.m. Grace Harris.
Wednesday 30th December 10.46 p.m.: Lea Dewey.
Friday 1st January: Crowley concludes that ‘Mercury is Lord of New York City’ and he begins daily invocations of him using the ritual in Liber Israfel sub figura LXIV. These first three Chokmah Days are filled by silence and solitude.
Saturday 2nd January: Aimee Gouraud called to see Crowley. 9 p.m. Lea Dewey.
Sunday 3rd January: Invocation of Mercury: 10.30 a.m. 2.00 p.m. 9.30 p.m.
Monday 4th January: Crowley speaks at a club, probably on magick and Buddhism. Invocation of Mercury: 9.30 a.m. 2.30 p.m. 11.35 p.m.
Tuesday 5th January: Crowley recites (possibly his poetry) at a reception. 8.50 p.m. Grace Harris. Invocation of Mercury: 10.30 a.m. 4.30 p.m. 10.15 p.m. ‘followed by Dharana on Caduceus, the W[inged] G[lobe] being in the cerebellum and the staff in the spine. Not very good and yet near Dhyana.’...’I do not seem to have noted that I brought in the new (vulgar) year by the Thoth invocation, followed by Enochian Calls, and then the Bornless One.’ [Rex de Art Regia: The Magical Record of the Beast 666. Symonds and Grant].
Wednesday 6th January: Invocation of Mercury: 10.00 a.m. 6.20 p.m. 8.40 p.m. 11.35 p.m.
Thursday 7th January: Crowley’s address at this time is 170 West 72nd Street, New York. Invocation of Mercury: 11.00 a.m. 3.45 p.m. 12.20 a.m.
Friday 8th January: Invocation of Mercury: 10.45 a.m. 2.10 p.m. 9.00 p.m.
Saturday 9th January: Invocation of Mercury: 10.45 a.m. 4.00 p.m.
Sunday 10th January 3.20 p.m.: Lea Dewey. 4 p.m. Crowley visited Aimee Gouraud. Invocation of Mercury: 10.45 a.m. 1.30 p.m. 11.30 p.m.
Monday 11th January: Invocation of Mercury: 10.45 a.m. 1.30 p.m. 12.30 a.m.
Tuesday 12th January: Invocation of Mercury: 10.45 a.m. 1.30 p.m. 6.00 p.m.
Wednesday 13th January: Invocation of Mercury: 11.00 a.m. 1.30 p.m. 12.15 a.m.
Thursday 14th January: Invocation of Mercury: 10.00 a.m. 2.00 p.m. 11.20 p.m.

DAY II

Friday 15th January 1915-Sunday 28th March 1915

Friday 15th January: Invocation of Mercury: 11.00 a.m. 4.00 p.m. 8.20 p.m.
Saturday 16th January 9.12 p.m.: Margaret Pitcher. Invocation of Mercury: 10.35 a.m. 6.00 p.m. 12.50 a.m.
Sunday 17th January: Invocation of Mercury: 11.50 a.m. 3.10 p.m. 12.20 a.m.
Monday 18th January: Invocation of Mercury: 11.00 a.m. 1.20 p.m. 10.45 p.m.
Tuesday 19th January: Invocation of Mercury: 11.50 p.m.
Wednesday 20th January: Invocation of Mercury: 9.20 a.m. 8.40 p.m. 11.10 p.m.
Thursday 21st January: Invocation of Mercury: 10.45 a.m. (with LBR, Lesser Banishing Ritual performed before invocation). 2.00 p.m. 11.55 p.m.
Friday 22nd January: Invocation of Mercury: 10.40 a.m. (with LBR). 2.30 p.m. (with LBR). 9.20 p.m.
Saturday 23rd January: Invocation of Mercury: 10.35 a.m. (with LBR). 3.20 p.m. 8.30 p.m.
Sunday 24th January: Invocation of Mercury: 10.50 a.m. (with LBR). 2.00 p.m. 3.20 p.m.
Monday 25th January: Invocation of Mercury: 2.35 a.m. 10.40 a.m. (with LBR)> 5.55 p.m. 11.50 p.m.
Tuesday 26th January 9.15 p.m. and 10.13 p.m.: Lola Auguste Grumbacher nee Oliviera. Invocation of Mercury: 10.40 a.m. (with LBR). 3.15 p.m. 9.15 p.m. 10.25 p.m.
Wednesday 27th January: Invocation of Mercury: 10.30 a.m. (with LBR). 3.40 p.m. 8.35 p.m.
Thursday 28th January: Invocation of Mercury: 10.40 a.m. (with LBR). 3.27 p.m.
Friday 29th January 4.05 p.m.: Lola Auguste Grumbacher nee Oliviera. Invocation of Mercury: 10.50 a.m. (with LBR). 10.00 p.m.
Saturday 30th January 3.47 p.m.: Soror Aimee Crocker Gouraud. Invocation of Mercury: 10.55 a.m. (with LBR). 4.00 p.m.
Monday 1st February: Invocation of Mercury: 10.50 a.m. (with LBR). 2.15 p.m. 10.30 p.m.
Tuesday 2nd February: Invocation of Mercury: 10.30 a.m. (with LBR). 3.30 p.m. 10.50 p.m.
Wednesday 3rd February: Invocation of Mercury: 10.40 a.m. (with LBR). 3.40 p.m. 10.05 p.m. 11.59 p.m.
Thursday 4th February: Invocation of Mercury: 10.35 a.m. (with LBR). 3.00 p.m. 12.00 p.m.
Friday 5th February: Invocation of Mercury: 10.30 a.m. (with LBR). 2.00 p.m. 11.40 p.m.
Saturday 6th February: Invocation of Mercury: 10.55 a.m. (with LBR). 3.00 p.m. 8.20 p.m.
Sunday 7th February: Invocation of Mercury: 10.50 a.m. (with LBR). 4.15 p.m. 10.50 p.m.
Monday 8th February: Invocation of Mercury: 11.50 a.m. 4.15 p.m. 11.20 p.m.
Tuesday 9th February: Invocation of Mercury: 11.10 a.m. 3.05 p.m. 12.15 a.m.
Wednesday 10th February: Invocation of Mercury: 10.40 a.m. 5.55 p.m. 10.50 p.m.
Thursday 11th February 5.31 p.m.: Lea Dewey. Invocation of Mercury: 11.45 a.m. 11.25 p.m.
Friday 12th February: Invocation of Mercury: 11.40 a.m. 1.00 p.m. 12.45 p.m.
Saturday 13th February 8.54 p.m.: Lea Dewey. Leila Waddell left Liverpool bound for the United States. Invocation of Mercury: 10.40 a.m. 5.50 p.m. 9.30 p.m.
Sunday 14th February: Invocation of Mercury: 2.30 p.m. 11.15 p.m.
Sunday 21st February: Leila is recorded assisting Crowley in a magical operation.
Thursday 4th March 2.55 p.m.: Lea Dewey.
Tuesday 9th March: Invocation of Mercury: 1.05 p.m. 4.00 p.m.
Wednesday 10th March: Invocation of Mercury: 12.15 p.m.
Friday 19th March 3.35 a.m.: Doris Carlisle (or Edwards or Gomez). 6.50 p.m. Leila waddell.
Friday 26th March 11.31 p.m.: Lea Dewey.

DAY III

Monday 29th March 1915-Wednesday 9th June 1915

Wednesday 31st March 11.15 p.m.: Doris Carlisle (or Edwards or Gomez).
Thursday 8th April 3.11 a.m.: Doris Carlisle (or Edwards or Gomez).
Monday 12th April 2.20 a.m.: Doris Carlisle (or Edwards or Gomez).
Monday 19th April 3.02 a.m.: Doris Carlisle (or Edwards or Gomez).
Wednesday 21st April 1.56 a.m.: Doris Carlisle (or Edwards or Gomez).
Thursday 29th April 1 a.m.: Doris Carlisle (or Edwards or Gomez).
Monday 3rd May 10.52 p.m.: Helen Marshall.
Tuesday 4th May 8.47 p.m.: Leila Waddell.
Saturday 8th May 8.37 p.m.: Viola.
Friday 14th May 11.56 p.m.: Doris Carlisle (or Edwards or Gomez).
Saturday 22nd May: Crowley visits a Turkish bath house and in the steam room at 2.14 a.m. he performs fellatio on a ‘stranger’. At 3.34 a.m. another ‘stranger’ enters the ‘fundament of the King’ [Crowley]. And at 3.54 a.m. a third ‘stranger’ enters the ‘fundament of the King’.
Sunday 23rd May 9.30 p.m.: Marie Low.
Saturday 29th May: Crowley visits the Turkish bath house again and at 2.35 a.m. a ‘stranger’ enters ‘the fundament of the King’.
Sunday 30th May 2.03 a.m.: A ‘stranger’ [Mr Finch] enters ‘the fundament of the King’.
Wednesday 2nd June 12.25 a.m.: ‘Julia Robertson’.
Friday 4th June 9.50-10.50 p.m.: Crowley met Mr Finch again (whom he probably met in the bath house).
Sunday 6th June 10 p.m.: Crowley meets Mr Finch again.
Wednesday 9th June 1.54 p.m.: ‘Mamie’

DAY IV

Thursday 10th June 1915-Saturday 21st August 1915

Thursday 10th June: Crowley met Jean Robert Foster nee Oliver (born: 10th March 1879- died: 22nd September 1970), a poet born in New York, she married a man named Matlock Foster in 1896. She became the first ‘officer’ to assist Crowley in his initiation and because of her feline physiognomy she was given the name of the Cat Officer. She also became Crowley’s 3rd Scarlet Woman: Soror Hilarion. The same evening Crowley also met Helen Westley (1879-1942). She was born in Brooklyn and she became the Snake Officer. Sunday 13th June 4.25 p.m.: Laura Brown.
Wednesday 16th June 12.21 a.m.: ‘Lilian’.
Saturday 3rd July: Statue of Liberty:
‘I thought I would do something more public. I wrote a long parody on the Declaration of Independence and applied it to Ireland. I invited a young lady violinist who has some Irish blood in her, behind the more evident stigmata of the ornithorhyncus and the wombat. Adding to our number about four other debauched persons on the verge of delirium tremens, we went out in a motor boat before dawn on the third of July to the rejected statue of Commerce for the Suez Canal, which Americans fondly suppose to be Liberty Enlightening The World.
There I read my Declaration of Independence. I threw an old envelope into the bay, pretending that it was my British passport. We hoisted the Irish flag. The violinist played the "Wearing of the Green". The crews of the interned German ships cheered us all the way up the Hudson, probably because they estimated the degree of our intoxication with scientific precision. Finally, we went to Jack's for breakfast, and home to sleep it off.’ [Confessions. Chapter 76]
Thursday 8th July: Crowley and Foster are sexually intimate for the first time.

DAY V

Sunday 22nd August 1915-Tuesday 2nd November 1915

Wednesday 6th October: Crowley leaves New York to travel the West Coast. Hilarion and her husband also make the journey and Crowley and Hilarion manage to find moments to be together. He travels to Detroit, Chicago, Vancouver, Victoria, Seattle, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles, San Diego and the Grand Canyon.
Tuesday 12th October (Crowley’s 40th birthday) he takes the grade of Magus. ‘The next important stage in my initiation was the formal proclamation of my attainment. As the Master of the Temple I wore a seal ring; the lapis lazuli, engraved with my cipher, was covered by a platinum lid studded with pyramids to represent the City in which the Masters of the Temple abide. On October 12th, in the train from Chicago to Vancouver, while engaged in my annual Sammasati meditation upon my Path since the previous birthday, I was suddenly impelled to tear off this lid. A little later I left the train; and on reaching the hotel found that the lapis lazuli had dropped out of its setting. In the morning I sought and found it on the platform of the station, broken into seven pieces. I picked them up and put them away with the utmost care in my travelling safe, intending to distribute them on my death to my nearest representatives. Just over a year later, looking through my belongings, the packet was missing. (I have noticed that every time I receive an important initiation, some cherished article mysteriously disappears. It may be a pipe, a pen or what not: but it is always an object which is impregnated with my personality by constant use or special veneration. I cannot remember a single occasion when this has not happened. The theory is that the elementals or familiar spirits in attendance on the Magician exact, so to speak, a tip on all important occasions of rejoicing.) My idea in tearing off the lid was to proclaim ceremonially that I would come out of the darkness of the City of the Pyramids.’ [Confessions. Chapter 81]

DAY VI

Wednesday 3rd November 1915-Friday 14th January 1916

A terrible ordeal: The Cat leaves Crowley for her husband and Crowley must sever all magical ties with the Cat and destroy her.
December: Crowley’s address at this time is: 25 West 44th Street, New York City. He takes the name of Cyril Grey.
Saturday 1st January: Crowley writes ‘The Message of the Master Therion’.

DAY VII

Saturday 15th January 1916-Monday 27th March 1916

Friday 28th January: Florence Galy. Crowley breaks the relationship with the Cat with a banishing ritual.
February: Leila Waddell returns to New York.
Friday 25th February 5.25 p.m.: Leila Waddell.
Wednesday 1st March 9.05 a.m.: Leila Waddell.

DAY VIII

Tuesday 28th March 1916-Thursday 8th June 1916

During this Chokmah Day Crowley meets Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy, nee Richards (1885-1958) also known as Ratan Devi. She becomes the Monkey Officer. He also meets Gerda Sofia Gebauer nee Schumann (1896-1967) whom Crowley calls Gerda Maria von Khotek. She was born in Dresden, Germany and she becomes the Owl Officer. Crowley felt he had to choose between them and so he chose the Monkey Officer.
Wednesday 29th March 12.35 p.m.: Carter.
Wednesday 5th April 7.50 p.m.: Lilian Ham.
Monday 10th April 12.20 a.m.: Lydia (probably Lydia Cabo).
Wednesday 12th April 2.20 p.m.: Gerda Maria von Khotek.
Thursday 13th April 1.50 p.m.: Gerda Maria von Khotek.
Saturday 15th April (evening and next day 16th April): Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Thursday 20th April 10.30 p.m.: Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Saturday 22nd April 9.50 p.m.: Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Sunday 23rd April 4.00 p.m.: Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Monday 24th April 10.00 p.m.: Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Wednesday 26th April 6.15 p.m.: Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Thursday 27th April 10.15 p.m.: Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Friday 28th April (near midnight): Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Monday 1st May 11.00 p.m.: Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Wednesday 3rd May 10.00 p.m.: Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Wednesday 17th May (in Philadelphia): Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Thursday 18th May (in Philadelphia): Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Friday 19th May (in New York): Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Thursday 25th May 8.30 p.m. Washington D.C.: Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Saturday 27th May 10.00 p.m. (open air): Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Sunday 4th June 10.25 p.m. New York: Gerda Maria von Khotek.

DAY IX

Friday 9th June 1916-Sunday 20th August 1916

Saturday 10th June 1.20 a.m.: Leila Waddell.
Monday 12th June 9.30 p.m.: Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Friday 16th June 10.45 p.m.: Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Sunday 18th June 1.00 a.m.: Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Tuesday 20th June 10.20 a.m.: Gerda Maria von Khotek.
Wednesday 21st June (Summer Solstice): At 10 p.m. Charles Stansfeld Jones, Frater Achad, took the Oath of the Abyss and was born as a Babe of the Abyss.
The Monkey Officer went to England and Crowley went on a Great Magical Retirement in June to Adam’s Cottage, Lake Pasquaney, Bristol, New Hampshire. The cottage was owned by the astrologer Evangeline Adams (1868-1932).
Friday 23rd June 9.00 p.m. Adam’s Cottage, New Hampshire: Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Saturday 24th June 9.00 a.m.: Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Sunday 25th June 9.00 a.m. and 9.00 p.m.: Ethel Alice Coomaraswamy.
Wednesday 28th June: At Adam’s Cottage, Lake Pasquaney: at 7.30 p.m. Crowley took ‘200 drops Chocolate base preparation Anh(alonium) Lew(inii)’ then at 10.30 p.m. he records in his diary
‘Awhile ago I had cut down a great tree, whose fork was marvellous like unto the thighs of a Goddess. This I set up upon a stone, and putting another part of the trunk – with a similar but smaller fork – for a Phallus, I did enflame this giant copulation by my magick art. And first the Phallus became as the head of a great serpent, even the eye and ear marked aright, and he visibly taking pleasure in his kisses to that mighty Vulva. Last he fell exhausted, and the head being burnt through, I did then erect the shaft against that mighty Love; then they glowed and flamed right gleefully together; even unto this hour.’ [Liber LXXIII ‘the Urn’]
Thursday 29th June: At 6 a.m. he writes ‘At 5 I work and have now broken my fast, etc. The great copulation is still glowing red, the Phallus almost eaten through below the glans, yet still erect and joyous.’ [Liber LXXIII ‘the Urn’]
Tuesday 3rd July: At Adam’s Cottage, Crowley wrote ‘De Thaumaturgia’.
Tuesday 11th July: Crowley hears of Jones’s attainment. He notes in his diary: ‘This removes a bar to my full grade of 9°=2□. (I had heard before, by wire, on descending from the train at Bristol [New Hampshire]; but I had a blind fit on)’ [Liber LXXIII ‘the Urn’]
Wednesday 12th July: The Great Storm at Lake Pasquaney and Crowley witnesses the fire ball at the Cottage. He writes in his diary: ‘A storm struck the lake; I went out to put my canoe in safety. Returning, I found a father, mother, and child who had taken refuge under my roof. I was wet through, and went into the Middle Chamber of the cottage to change my clothes. I had just got the clean shirt on, and was stooping for the trousers, when a globe of fire burst a few inches from my right foot. A spark sprang to the middle joint of the middle finger of my left hand.’ [Liber LXXIII ‘the Urn’] It was also on this day that the Monkey Officer miscarried Crowley’s child.
Sunday 16th July: Crowley wrote ‘Good Hunting’.
Monday 17th July: Crowley performs the ceremony in which he captures a frog and baptises it as Jesus Christ. ‘Performed the ceremony of the assumption of the curse of the Grade of Magus:
O. The Mystery of Conception about 2 a.m.
I. The Mystery of Birth about 6 a.m.
II. The Mystery of Baptism about noon.
III. The Mystery of Worship all day.
IV. The Mystery of Trial 9.00 p.m.
V. The Mystery of Crucifixion 9.30 p.m.
VI. The Mystery of Resurrection and Ascension 9.45’ [Liber LXXIII ‘the Urn’]
Saturday 22nd July: Crowley is in Boston, Massachusets.
Sunday 23rd July (about midnight) Boston Massachusets: Marie Roussel.
Monday 24th July: Crowley returns to Adam’s Cottage, Lake Pasquaney.
Wednesday 26th July: Crowley wrote ‘The Law of Liberty’.
Sunday 30th July: Crowley wrote ‘Filo de Se’.
Friday 4th August: Crowley wrote ‘Black and Silver’.
Saturday 5th August: Crowley wrote ‘An Epistle to Parzival’ [see Liber CCC ‘Khabs am Pekht’] Friday 11th August: A local girl becomes Crowley’s stenographer and because of her resemblance to a frog she becomes the Frog Officer.
Saturday 12th August 6.00 p.m. Boston, Massachusets: Marie Roussel.
Sunday 13th August (and previous night): a ‘stranger’ in the fundament of the King.
Monday 14th August: Crowley writes Liber CVI ‘Concerning Death’.

DAY X

Monday 21st August 1916-Wednesday 1st November 1916

The Monkey Officer pleads with Crowley to take her back. He does not.
Wednesday 23rd August: The Star Sponge Vision:
‘Now with regard to my magical work strictly speaking, its character was presumably determined by my Grade. The Magus corresponds to the Sephira Chokmah, whose manifestation in the universe is Masloth, the Sphere of the Fixed Stars. It was accordingly proper that I should receive a revelation of the universe in this aspect. I began my meditation with no special objective in view. Almost immediately (instead of after a long- continued effort, as had been the case generally speaking in the past) I obtained a Samadhi of which my conscious memory brought back the account "Nothingness and twinkles", adding subsequently "but what twinkles!" This Samadhi developed in the course of time, as I repeated it, into such importance that I feel almost justified in calling it the radix of my whole philosophical outlook. I have described it, giving historical details, in my Comment on The Book of the Law, ch. I, v. 59. It seems convenient to quote this in this place, as throwing light upon the progress of my inmost apprehension of the universe from this time forward.

THE "STAR-SPONGE" VISION

There is a vision of a peculiar character which has been of cardinal importance in my interior life, and to which constant reference is made in my magical diaries. So far as I know, there is no extant description of this vision anywhere, and I was surprised on looking through my records to find that I had given no clear account of it myself.
The vision developed gradually. It was repeated on so many occasions that I am unable to say at what period it may be called complete.
I was on a retirement in a cottage overlooking Lake Pasquaney in New Hampshire. I lost consciousness of everything but a universal space in which were innumerable bright points, and I realized this as a physical representation of the universe, in what I may call its essential structure. I exclaimed, "Nothingness with twinkles!" I concentrated upon this vision, with the result that the void space which had been the principal element of it diminished in importance; space appeared to be ablaze, yet the radiant points were not confused, and I thereupon completed my sentence with the exclamation, "but what twinkles!"
The next stage of this vision led to an identification of the blazing points with the stars of the firmament, with ideas, souls, etc. I perceived also that each star was connected by a ray of light with each other star. In the world of ideas each thought possessed a necessary relation with each other thought; each such relation is of course a thought in itself; each such ray is itself a star. It is here that the logical difficulty first presents itself. The seer has a direct perception of infinite series. Logically, therefore, it would appear as if the entire space must be filled up with a homogeneous blaze of light. This however is not the case. The space is completely full and yet the monads which fill it are perfectly distinct. The ordinary reader might well exclaim that such statements exhibit symptoms of mental confusion.
A further development of the vision brought to the consciousness that the structure of the universe was highly organized, that certain stars were of greater magnitude and brilliancy than the rest. While at Montauk, I had put my sleeping bag to dry in the sun. When I went to take it in, I remarked, laughingly, "Your bedtime, Master Bag," as if it were a small boy and I its nurse. This was entirely frivolous; but the thought flashed into my mind that after all the bag was in one sense a part of myself. The two ideas came together with a snap, and I understood the machinery of a man's delusion that he is a teapot.
From this I came to another discovery: I perceived why platitudes were stupid. The reason was that they represented the summing up of trains of thought, each of which was superb in every detail at one time. A platitude was like a wife after a few years; she has lost none of her charms, and yet one prefers some perfectly worthless woman.
It would be quite impracticable to go fully into the subject of this vision of the Star-Sponge. It must suffice to reiterate that it has been the basis of most of my work for the last five years, and to remind the reader that the essential form of it is "Nothingness with twinkles".’ [Confessions. Chapter 82]
Wednesday 30th August: Crowley wrote ‘The Priest of Nemi’ which became ‘The King of the Woods’.
Thursday 31st August: Crowley begins writing ‘The Mass of St Secaire’.
Friday 1st September: Crowley finished writing ‘The Mass of St Secaire’.He also finished dictating ‘The Gospel According to St. Bernard Shaw’ Liber DCCCLXXXVIII to the Frog Officer.
Saturday 2nd September: Crowley writes ‘The Burning of Melcarth’.
Sunday 3rd September: Crowley begins writing ‘The Corycian Cave’.
Monday 4th September: Crowley finishes writing ‘The Corycian Cave’. 10.30 p.m.: Doris Gomez.
Wednesday 6th September: Crowley begins writing ‘The Priestess of Cybelle’, which became ‘The Stone of Cybelle’.
Thursday 7th September: Crowley finishes writing ‘The Priestess of Cybell’. 11.20 p.m.: Doris Gomez.
Friday 8th September: Crowley begins writing ‘The God of Ibreez’.
Saturday 9th September: Crowley finishes writing ‘The God of Ibreez’.
Sunday 10th September: Crowley begins writing ‘The Old Man of the Peepul Tree’.
Monday 11th September: Crowley finishes writing ‘The Old Man of the Peepul Tree’.
Wednesday 13th September: Crowley begins writing ‘The Hearth’.
Thursday 14th September: Crowley finishes writing ‘The Hearth’.
Friday 15th September: Crowley had a visitor at the cottage, Professor Lindley Miller Keasbey (1867-1946) of the University of Texas Department of Economics and Political Science. [not long after his visit Keasbey was dismissed from the University in Austin, Texas].
Saturday 23rd September: Crowley was busy revising ‘The Gospel According to St. Bernard Shaw’. Also at this time he was reading Frazer’s ‘The Golden Bough’ and Jung’s ‘Psychology of the Unconscious’. ‘The word of the Equinox’ assisted by Gerda Maria von Khotek.
Monday 25th September 10.30 p.m.: Gerda Maria von Khotek.
Wednesday 27th September 12.30 a.m.: Gerda Maria von Khotek.
Friday 29th September 1.20 a.m.: Gerda Maria von Khotek.
Saturday 30th September 8.45 p.m. and 11.45 p.m.: Gerda Maria von Khotek.
Tuesday 3rd October: Crowley writes in his diary: ‘I note the period March 29 to Aug 22 as that in Egyptian rituals where one has a lot of small gods in the pylons. So here I had officers monkey, rat, frog and ram.’ [Liber LXXIII ‘the Urn’]. I have not been able to discover the identities of the ‘rat’ and the ‘ram’ officers. 12.35 a.m.: Gerda Maria von Khotek.
Wednesday 4th October 4.35 p.m.: Gerda Maria von Khotek.
Thursday 5th October 12.15 a.m.: Gerda Maria von Khotek.
Saturday 7th October 12.45 a.m.: Gerda Maria von Khotek.
Monday 9th October 12.30 a.m.: Gerda Maria von Khotek.
Thursday 12th October 7.45 a.m.: Gerda Maria von Khotek.
Saturday 14th October 2.10 a.m.: Gerda Maria von Khotek.
Monday 16th October: Crowley got on the wrong train trying to return to New York and travelled to Potter’s Place. Crowley wrongly assumes it to be in Massachusets but it is actually Potter Place, New Hampshire, near Andover. It is possible he stayed overnight and he used the location for his setting of his story ‘Psychic Compensation’ in his ‘Simon Iff, Psychoanalyst’.
Tuesday 17th October: Crowley is in New York. [He remains there until the morning of Sunday 9th December].

DAY XI

Thursday 2nd November 1916-Saturday 13th January 1917

Friday 3rd November 3.45 p.m.: Vera Gilbert.
Tuesday 7th November (late): Anna Grey.
Thursday 9th November 3.35 p.m.: Anna Grey.
Sunday 12th November 2.35 a.m.: Doris Gomez.
Sunday 19th November 9.30 p.m.: Anna Grey.
Monday 20th November 11.45 p.m.: Anna Grey.
Friday 1st December 4.00 p.m.: Anna Grey.
Tuesday 5th December 5.00 p.m.: Anna Grey. The end of the Great Magical Retirement at Adam’s Cottage, Lake Pasquaney.
Saturday 9th December: Crowley travels from New York to New Orleons and stays at a hotel in the French Quarter on Dauphine Street.
Sunday 10th December 8.50 p.m. New Orleons: Irene Standfield.
Monday 11th December 3.55 p.m.: Irene Standfield.
Wednesday 13th December 10.30 p.m.: Eleanore Jackson.
Friday 15th December: Crowley goes on ‘strike’ until he receives ‘better working conditions’ from the Secret Chiefs: ‘Twice recently the Lord has showed me signal favour, by sending a sufficient sum of money when I was within a dollar or so of actual starvation. It is really very kind of Him, and I am aware that this is the usual practice in such cases, but I have had about ten years of it, and “I’m through”. I don’t care what the practice is; my faith is in perfect working order, I enjoy the Beatific Vision practically without cessation; I’m not complaining. I’m merely going on strike. For my power to work is being hampered exceedingly by the constant worries about things like stenographers and printers. The Book of the Law is quite clear, we are to have a good time in the ordinary sense of the word. And if the Book is wrong, then the whole question lapses... I therefore down tools until I have (1) a competent stenographer (2) money enough in hand to see me comfortably through until the Equinox of Spring, this to include payment of all American liabilities and clothes (3) a guarantee – by some signal sign or in some more practical manner – that all will be well in future> I intend to interpret this in the most liberal way; and shall add to it this fourth demand (4) means of publishing immediately all MSS. Except those destined for Equinox III.’ [Liber LXXIII ‘the Urn’]
Wednesday 27th December: Crowley breaks the ‘strike’ and resumes magical work.

DAY XII

Sunday 14th January 1917-Tuesday 27th March 1917

Sunday 14th January: Crowley records that he had completed the six stories for his ‘Scrutinies of Simon Iff’.
Monday 15th January: Crowley begins writing the Simon Iff novel [Moonchild].
Wednesday 31st January 8.30 p.m.: Eleanore Jackson.
Thursday 1st February 4.30 p.m.: ‘sister’.
Sunday 4th February 8.15 p.m.: ‘sister’.
Friday 9th February: Crowley, after leaving New Orleaons, arrives at his cousin Lawrence Bishop’s plantation in Titusville, Florida.
Sunday 4th March 10.00 a.m.: Titusville ‘Maddy’.
Tuesday 6th March: Crowley writes in his diary: ‘Threatened severe frost. I averted same, to repay my cousin for his hospitality. The Op. was very remarkable. I went out at noon, in bitter cold and high wind; and I willed. I then slept very deeply for three hours, and woke in still, warm weather, with the sun shining. The forecasts had given several days of cold; and forecasts in America are very different to those in England; they rarely go wrong.’ [Liber LXXIII ‘the Urn’]

DAY XIII

Wednesday 28th March 1917-Saturday 9th June 1917

Thursday 29th March 08.03 a.m.: Crowley leaves the plantation at Titusville, Florida. Crowley travels to New York.
Sunday 1st April 5.00 p.m.: Anna Grey.
Tuesday 17th April 5.50 p.m.: Howard.
Sunday 22nd April: Crowley had been having doubts and so he meditates upon Mercury: ‘I said to myself that the obvious first step was to invoke Mercury. I instantly found myself, with a little internal laugh simmering in my solar plexus, saying, “But I am Mercury.” The suppressed chuckle was cut short suddenly by that feeling akin to alarm which a man often feels when he is sitting up late at night enjoying a book, and is suddenly reminded, perhaps by some slight noise, of some serious matter; an unexpected visitor, can it be, outside his door? For I was aware that there was something more in what I was saying to myself than its plain implication, and it came to me by some inscrutable instinct to couch the idea otherwise. “Mercurius sum,” I murmured, and now the unheard voice, not so loud as a whisper yet more compelling than a burst of thunder, told me without the use of language, “No, that isn’t it, say it in Greek.”’ - Ερμης ειμι [Epsilon rho mu eta sigma epsilon iota mu iota] has the numeration value of 418, the Magical Formula of the Aeon of Horus. [Confessions. Chapter 84] 
Friday 4th May: Crowley has a dream in which his mother Emily has died.
Sunday 6th May: Crowley hears of his mother’s death.
Sunday 27th May 12.05 a.m.: May Lewinstein.
Monday 28th May: Anita.
Wednesday 30th May: Anita.

..............................the end of the first half of initiation..............................

DAY XIV

Sunday 10th June 1917-Tuesday 21st August 1917

Crowley notices that the next half of his initiation, the ‘officers’ become ‘guides’ through the desert to the ‘House of the Juggler’ in which a Magus symbolically lives rather than administers of certain ordeals, for in fact, he had passed the ordeals.
The next ‘Officer’ appears and she is Anna Catherine Miller, a ‘Pennsylvania Dutch woman’. Crowley met her in August at a Singalese curry house on 8th Avenue. Crowley and Miller took a furnished flat in a corner house at Central Park West, near 110th Street. Because of her resemblance to Anubis, she becomes the Dog Officer.
Wednesday 27th June 11.30 p.m.: Helen Huljus.
Sunday 22nd July 2.30 p.m.: Anna Grey.
Saturday 11th August 4.00 p.m.: Anita.
Monday 13th August: Lionel Q____.
Tuesday 14th August 6.30 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller ‘the Dog’.
Thursday 16th August 11.20 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Saturday 18th August 11.20 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Sunday 19th August 4.30 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.

DAY XV

Wednesday 22nd August 1917-Friday 2nd November 1917

Wednesday 22nd August 9.10 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Thursday 23rd August 6.30 a.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Friday 24th August 8.33 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Saturday 25th August 10.30 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Sunday 26th August 11.00 a.m. and 10.30 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Tuesday 28th August 10.10 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Wednesday 29th August 11.00 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Friday 31st August 8.40 a.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Saturday 1st September 10.00 a.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Sunday 2nd September 5.20 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Monday 3rd September 2.15 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Wednesday 5th September 10.20 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Friday 7th September 6.30 a.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Sunday 9th September 12.45 a.m. and 2.20 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Tuesday 11th September 6.30 a.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Thursday 13th September 11.50 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Saturday 15th September 6.20 a.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Sunday 16th September 10.00 a.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Tuesday 18th September 11.20 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Wednesday 19th September 11.20 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Friday 21st September 7.10 a.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Saturday 22nd September 11.20 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Friday 28th September 1.00 a.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Sunday 30th September 5.15 a.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Early October: The Dog Officer shows sign of being an alcoholic and Crowley leaves the flat they share and finds a studio on West 9th Street which he shares with the Dog’s friend, Roddie Minor. Roddie Minor, whom Crowley met on Monday 1st October, was born in Georgia in 1884 (she died in Virginia in 1979) and she was married at the time of her meeting with Crowley, for she is also known as Mrs Zain. Crowley also calls her ‘Eve’ and because she has come to Crowley at a dry period, magically, she is to guide him across the desert; she is therefore given the title of the Camel Officer. She also becomes Crowley’s Scarlet Woman, Soror Achita.
Monday 1st October 8.20 p.m.: Roddie Minor, ‘the Camel’.
Wednesday 3rd October 11.50 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Thursday 4th October 8.00 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Friday 5th October 10.00 a.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Tuesday 9th October 10.15 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Thursday 11th October 12.10 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Friday 12th October: Crowley’s 42nd birthday. 11.30 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Saturday 13th October 7.00 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Sunday 14th – Tuesday 16th October: Roddie Minor.
Thursday 18th October 11.30 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Friday 19th October 11.30 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Sunday 21st October 11.00 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Monday 22nd October 12.40 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Tuesday 23rd October 11.30 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Friday 26th October (late): Roddie Minor.
Sunday 28th October 9.50 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Tuesday 30th October: Roddie Minor.

DAY XVI

Saturday 3rd November 1917-Monday 14th January 1918

Saturday 3rd November 12.30 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Sunday 4th November 7.30 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Tuesday 6th November 4.00 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Saturday 10th November: Roddie Minor.
Sunday 11th November: Roddie Minor.
Thursday 15th November 11.40 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Saturday 24th November p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Sunday 25th November a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Tuesday 27th November 10.15 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Wednesday 5th December 7.30 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Saturday 8th December: Crowley begins his first story in the series called ‘Simon Iff in America’.
Sunday 9th December 12.20 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Tuesday 11th December 11.40 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Thursday 13th December 10.20 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Sunday 16th December 4.40 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Sunday 16th – Saturday 22nd December: Crowley writes a further five stories for ‘Simon Iff in America’.
Friday 21st December 11.30 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
 Saturday 22nd – Thursday 27th December: Crowley writes another four more stories for ‘Simon Iff in America’.
Tuesday 25th December: Roddie Minor.
Saturday 29th December 11.40 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Sunday 30th December 3.40 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Tuesday 1st January 5.30 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Friday 4th January 10.30-11.10 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller and Walter Gray.
Monday 7th January 2.20 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Friday 11th January 10.00 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Saturday 12th January 1.00 a.m.: Anna Catherine Miller and 10.00 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller and Walter Gray.
Monday 14th January, 12.10 a.m.: The Camel has the first of many spirit communications from the wizard named Amalantrah (729) in what will be known as the Amalantrah Working.

‘While with The Lady of Our Dreams I had a vision of Myself being a spreading candlestick with thirteen candles. Over each flame was the opening of a tube which could hold water as a fountain. These tubes met the flame in a throbbing vibration which became almost excruciating when suddenly the part of the candlestick above the stem or staff, broke off and became a crown. The crown floated in the air tilted at a slight angle and a circle which was a halo came down from heaven and dropped into the crown. In the centre a wand came and then it all hovered above the candlestick with a veil round it. The veil in some ways appeared as rays of light. After I told this vision T[herion] talked a long while about the number 93; how adepts were tested when they brought messages; and how messages had been sent to him through the Scarlet Woman.
I had another vision of myself being thirteen naked women lying in a row and all being caressed at one time. When I told this to T., in a somewhat indirect manner, he suggested that I see if I could get any messages through visions or otherwise.
I began by asking for a vision containing a message. I first heard gurgling water and saw a dark farmhouse in among trees and green fields. The house and other things disappeared and a dark yoni appeared just where the house had stood. I then asked where will a message come from? Immediately soldiers with guns appeared lounging about the place and a king on a throne where the house had stood. I then asked again for a message and saw an egg in which were many tiny convolutions of some flesh-like substance which would form something. The egg was placed in an oblong as in a picture. Around it were clouds, trees, mountains and water, called the `four elements'. A camel appeared in front of the whole picture. I next tried to find out who the king was. He looked more like Prof. Shotwell than anyone else. That is, he was `simple, democratic' and very learned and fine. He was certainly not a king belonging to any kingdom limited by a country's borders, but was a king of men, or a king of the world. I asked his name and the word `Ham' appeared between the egg in the oblong and the soldiers around the king. i.e. King of Egypt?
The king went out to one side and a wizard linked his arm in the king's as they disappeared. The wizard looked at me significantly as they left. It was a sort of look as if one would almost wink. He was an old man, with gray beard, dressed in a long black gown. He was infinitely wise. They seemed to go to a cave in the base of a low mountain on the shore of a large body of water. A spring of sparkling cool water bubbled up through a barrel near the mouth of the cave. I went into the cave and saw them doing something mysterious with a revolver. The wizard had the revolver. What they were going to do was a joke of some kind, but the wizard looked grim about it. At T.'s suggestion I went up to them and said, ``I am Eve.'' This seemed to stop everything. They both disappeared with the cave. Very soon I saw the king sitting in a niche covered with a canopy, cut in the side of the mountain. In quite another place the wizard was sitting under a tree fanning himself. At T.'s suggestion I went up to him and asked him his name. I became very frightened and had the same sensation as when I spoke to him in the cave. It was a kind of shyness and awe. He only smiled at me and would not speak. It seemed that I did not know enough for him to speak with me. In order for him to say anything to me I should have to build a fire of sticks, which he showed me how to do. There was a baby in some way connected with the act of my building the fire which was like a ritual. Then a most beautiful lion was standing by the fire. The wizard was standing and still held one or two sticks in his hand. He smiled and said, ``Child.'' I then saw a most beautiful naked boy 5 or 6 years old dancing and playing in the woods in front of us. T. asked how he would look dressed and when I saw him in conventional clothes he looked very uncomfortable and repressed. He looked as if he should be dressed in skins such as tigers'. To one side near the place where I made the fire was a large turtle standing up as a penguin stands.
The wizard was very happy and satisfied looking. He sat down and reached out his hand to me and had me sit down beside him. As we watched the boy he put his left arm around me tenderly and placed my head on the left side of his chest near the shoulder. He said, ``It's all in the egg.''’ [Liber XCVII The Amalantrah Working]

DAY XVII

Tuesday 15th January 1918-Thursday 28th March 1918

During this period, other officers appear who assist with the Amalantrah Working. Three officers become the Scorpion Officers and they are: the Canadian singer Eve Tanguay (1878-1947), Soror Darola (306); Marie Roehling [Marie Lavrov] born 1891 in Odessa. She is Soror Olun (156), the Dragon. Dorothy A. Troxel (1896-1986), a Russian musician, she is Soror Wesrun (333 or 888). Another officer of this time is Elsa Lowensohn Lincke, born 1864 and she is Soror Bazedon (444).
Tuesday 15th January (evening): Santas Occasio.
Thursday 17th January 1.20 a.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Saturday 19th January 9.00 p.m. - Sunday 20th January 7.00 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Sunday 20th January: Amalantrah Working. 3 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Thursday 24th January 10.00 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller and Walter Gray.
Friday 25th January: Amalantrah Working.
Sunday 27th January (early morn): Anna Catherine Miller.
Tuesday 29th January 10.00 p.m.: Walter Gray.
Wednesday 30th January: Anna Catherine Miller.
Thursday 31st January: Crowley writes in his diary: ‘Since last entry there has been the initiation of a new and very strong magical current. Eve [Roddie Minor, the Camel] has been getting visions and messages, evidently authentic, since her informant solved the problem of the spelling of Baphomet, and other things which had baffled me for a long time.’ [Liber LXXIII ‘the Urn’]
Saturday 2nd February: Amalantrah Working. 2.30 a.m. Also: Anna Catherine Miller.
Sunday 3rd February: Amalantrah Working.
Wednesday 6th February (evening): Anna Catherine Miller.
Thursday 7th February 9.30 p.m. – 11.00 p.m.: Anna Catherine Miller and Walter Gray.
Saturday 9th – Monday 11th February: Amalantrah Working. 5.20 p.m. 7.10 p.m.
Saturday 9th – Monday 11th February: Anna Catherine Miller and Roddie Minor.
Monday 11th February: Leon.
Tuesday 12th February: Amalantrah Working.
Saturday 16th February: Amalantrah Working.10 p.m. Anna Catherine Miller and Roddie Minor.
Sunday 17th February: Amalantrah Working. 1.30 a.m. 11 a.m. 8 p.m.
Monday 18th February 12.40 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Thursday 21st February 4.00 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Tuesday 26th February 7.45 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Wednesday 27th February 7.57 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Thursday 28th February 9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.: Walter Gray. Also later: Roddie Minor and Walter Gray.
Sunday 3rd March 10.00 a.m.: Roddie Minor. Amalantrah Working. 1.15 p.m. 2.05 p.m.
Thursday 7th March 11.30 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Saturday 9th March 10.40 p.m.: Roddie Minor. Amalantrah Working. 9.50 and 10.40
Sunday 10th March 3.50 p.m.: : Roddie Minor. Amalantrah Working. 12.20 a.m. 4.30 a.m. 9 a.m. 2.35 p.m. 3.50 p.m. 6 p.m. 6.25 p.m.
Thursday 14th March: Amalantrah Working. 9.30 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Saturday 16th March: Amalantrah Working. 9.20 p.m.
Sunday 17th March (morning): Roddie Minor. Amalantrah Working. 8.40 ether experiment.
Monday 18th March 10.00 p.m.: Walter Gray.
Wednesday 20th March 4.00 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Thursday 21st March (Spring Equinox) 11.30 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Friday 22nd March (midnight): Marie Lavrov [Soror Olun] and Roddie Minor.
Saturday 23rd March: Amalantrah Working. 11.20 p.m.
Sunday 24th March 5.30 a.m.: Roddie Minor. 11.00 p.m.: Marie Lavrov [Soror Olun].
Tuesday 26th March: Amalantrah Working. 5.15 p.m.

DAY XVIII

Friday 29th March 1918-Sunday 9th June 1918

Friday 29th March 6.30 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Saturday 30th March 2.30 a.m.: Roddie Minor. Charles Stansfeld Jones, Frater Achad, arrives and he assists with the Amalantrah Working. For the working he is Frater Arcteon (777).
Saturday 30th March: Amalantrah Working. 8.20 p.m.
Sunday 31st March: Amalantrah Working. 4.50 p.m. 7.15 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Monday 1st April: Amalantrah Working. 11.20 p.m.
Wednesday 3rd April 1.30 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Thursday 4th April 1.30 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Friday 5th April: Amalantrah Working. 12.15 p.m.
Saturday 6th April: Amalantrah Working. 7.20 and 10.20. 11.20 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Sunday 7th April: Amalantrah Working. 1 p.m. 8.55 p.m.
Monday 8th April 11.20 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Thursday 11th April: Roddie Minor.
Saturday 13th April: Amalantrah Working. 9.22 p.m.
Sunday 14th April: Amalantrah Working. 9.15 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Wednesday 17th April 2.20 a.m.: Roddie Minor. 4.15 p.m.: Gerda Maria von Khotek.
Thursday 18th April 11.00 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Saturday 20th April: Amalantrah Working. 8.45 p.m. 10.45 p.m. 11.33 p.m.
Sunday 21st April: Amalantrah Working. 2.10 a.m. 9.20 a.m. 12.50 p.m. 8.25 p.m. 10.08 p.m.
Monday 22nd April: Operation continued from 21st April: Roddie Minor.
Saturday 27th April: Amalantrah Working.
Sunday 28th April: Amalantrah Working. 3.20 a.m. 10.05 p.m.
Tuesday 30th April 9.30 a.m.: Anna Catherine Miller.
Wednesday 1st May 2.10 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Sunday 5th May: Roddie Minor. Amalantrah Working. 2 a.m. 3.20 p.m. 4.30 p.m. 9.35 p.m. midnight.
Friday 10th May 8.20 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Sunday 12th May: Amalantrah Working. 3.42 p.m. 9.20 p.m.
Saturday 18th May: Amalantrah Working. 11.25 p.m.
Sunday 19th May 9.05 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Tuesday 21st May 1.45 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Friday 24th May (and possibly early 25th May): Roddie Minor.
Saturday 25th May: Amalantrah Working.
Sunday 26th May (evening): Roddie Minor.
Tuesday 28th May 1.50 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Friday 31st May: Amalantrah Working. 10.35 p.m.
Sunday 2nd June 2.05 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Monday 3rd June 1.30 a.m.: Roddie Minor. Amalantrah Working. 5.00
Thursday 6th June 1.45 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
Sunday 9th June 1.15 p.m.: Roddie Minor.

DAY XIX

Monday 10th June 1918-Wednesday 21st August 1918

Monday 10th June: Amalantrah Working. 8.45-9.50.
Wednesday 12th June 9.30 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Friday 14th June: Amalantrah Working. 12.26 a.m.
Sunday 16th June: Amalantrah Working. 9 p.m. This is the last working.
July: C F Russell (1897-1987) came to visit Crowley in New York.
Sunday 23rd June: Roddie Minor.
Sunday 14th July: Roddie Minor.
Thursday 18th July 11.00 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Friday 19th July: Crowley begins a Great Magical Retirement in a canoe on the Hudson River. Sunday 21st July 10.00 p.m.: Roddie Minor.
Sunday 28th July 2.00 p.m.: Roddie Minor. August: The work of the Camel ends and she and Crowley part.
Monday 19th August: Crowley is in New York on OTO business where he stays for two days.
Tuesday 20th August 7.00 a.m.: Roddie Minor.
August-September: Crowley camps at Esopus Island and explores his many previous incarnations.

DAY XX

Thursday 22nd August 1918-Saturday 2nd November 1918

Sunday 1st September 5.20 a.m.: Madeleine George.
Monday 2nd September 11.05 a.m.: Madeleine George.
Thursday 5th September: Crowley received a ‘Vision of Jupiter’:
‘I feel that I am more likely to be able to convey some hint of the colossal character of this revelation if I simply quote the broken staggering words in which I wrote it down at the time. As will be seen, I did not dare to write what it actually was, but I remember at this moment how I had to invoke the deep-seated habit of years to get courage to drag myself to my diary. I felt like a soldier wounded to death, scrawling in his own blood the horrifyingly disastrous information which he has lost his life in seeking.
5:00 p.m. The meditation of this afternoon resulted in an initiation so stupendous that I dare not hint at its Word. It is the supreme secret of a Magus, and its is so awful that I tremble even now --- two hours later and more --- 2:20 p.m. was the time --- as I write concerning it. In a single instant I had the Key to the whole of the Chinese wisdom. In the light --- momentary glimpse as it was --- of this truth, all systems of religion and philosophy became absolutely puerile. Even the Law appears no more than a curious incident. I remain absolutely bewildered, blinded, knowing what blasting image lies in this shrine. It baffles me to understand how my brother Magi, knowing this, ever went on.
I had only one foreshadowing of this Vision of Jupiter --- for so I may call it! --- and that was a Samadhi which momentarily interrupted my concentration of Sammasati. This can only be described vaguely by saying that I obtained a reconciliation of two contraries of which "There is a discrimination between good and evil" is one.
This experience has shaken me utterly; it has been a terrible struggle to force myself to this record. The secret comes along the Path of Aleph to Chokmah. I could write it plainly in a few words of one syllable, and most people would not even notice it. But it has might to hurl every Master of the Temple into the Abyss, and to fling every adept of the Rose Cross down to the Qliphoth. No wonder One said that the Book T was in ashes in the Urn of a Magus! I can't see at all how it will affect me at present. Even the Way of the Tao looks idiotic --- but then of course that's what it is! So I suppose that's it, all right. And its freedom, in an utterly fascinating and appalling sense, is beyond my fiercest conception.’ [Confessions. Chapter 86]
Monday 9th September: Crowley is in New York where he takes a studio at 1 University Place on the corner of Washington Square. He begins to paint.

DAY XXI

Sunday 3rd November 1918-Tuesday 14th January 1919

Saturday 11th January: Crowley meets Leah Hirsig (1883-1975), she becomes the last of the officers in his initiation and she is the Ape Officer after the Ape of Thoth. She also becomes his Scarlet Woman, Alostrael.

A BEAR IN THE ORCHARD

By BARRY VAN-ASTEN

Marcel Delvaux was of French descent, a member of a long and noble aristocratic family whose eminent line it is said had links back to Mary Antoinette and to the court of the Sun King, yet it had dishevelled. The family tree, like an old rose bush in a genteel landscape, had been pruned as members who aspired too high were lopped off; sometimes roots crept into pastures where they should not creep, these unfortunate bastards were blessed with the blood of nobility but are not crowned with the glory to bear the name. Of Marcel’s blood we can be sure but of his heritage we must resist the desire to splinter him into the Royal box for the Revolution ended any pretensions to any throne!
Marcel was considered quite handsome in a European sort of way with his dark hair and sun-worn complexion; he was athletically built and tall of stature with dark eyes. He was always dressed impeccably and possessed a fine and extensive wardrobe.
Marcel’s father Raymonde Delvaux had made his fortune in the wine industry, exporting to colder climates that were less fortunate to deserve the golden rays of the sun. Marcel’s mother Jean Delvaux nee L’Orette, had died during Marcel’s infancy and his memories of her were scarce but he always remembered her to be smiling and smelling of roses wearing long loose flowing dresses and floppy hats. She was taken away to walk beside the good Lord as an angel, Marcel was told, but in actual fact she died of heart failure while out riding and the good Lord had no hand in requesting her services and appointing her as yet another angel in a work place with already an over-abundance of the things! As a child at the family chateaux Marcel would want for nothing: ponies were paraded around the gardens and Marcel would ride out to the vineyard to watch the pickers; his father had even bought Marcel a pet bear which he named Mephistopheles and it was chained to a post and tormented by the young boy until it broke free and escaped and was shot dead near the outskirts of the village by all accounts. In fact, life at the chateaux was nothing short of the last days of ancient Rome with an abundance of wealth that spilt into every aspect of Marcel’s life. During his formative years Marcel was privately educated at the chateaux by an English school mistress named Katrina Holt, a very stern and overbearing lady of mature years with the remains of a face that was once possibly extremely beautiful. The elegant Miss Holt taught Marcel an eclectic timetable of subjects from art, Latin, English, history, geography and all the other nasty little lessons that wasted the golden hours of the day, but of course, Marcel was a model student and excelled in chemistry and mathematics for which he showed great aptitude.
Marcel’s younger brother Andre whose speech was like rifle shots never got on with Marcel and as soon as age permitted he was away from the family and the confines of the chateaux. He became involved with some unsavoury characters and got into some enormous debts; he was caught misdirecting funds from the company he was working for and accordingly did the decent thing and hung himself, leaving his widow and young daughter with what little dignity an honourable death can afford.
Marcel became intrigued with Catholicism and spoke with great enthusiasm about converting to the faith to his cousin Baptiste Dubois who was staunchly of the Catholic persuasion. Baptiste, who resented Marcel’s family wealth informed his younger cousin about all the magnificent benefits of becoming a Catholic and some lesser known facts about the church, for example, that within the bowels of the Vatican reside six cannibal cardinals who are fed with the flesh of Protestant virgins, and that the splendidly hirsute and syphilitic Pope Leo XII lived a somewhat secluded existence and was a confirmed lycanthrope, thus he was kept on a leash blessed by his predecessor at the time of the full moon. Then of course there was the mad Pope Paul II in the fifteenth Century who was still alive to this day, kept alive by the blood of Christ that miraculously bleeds from a Holy relic kept locked away in the Vatican. Then of course there are the Pope’s handmaidens, a select group of eunuch priests kept in a special room where their only purpose in life is to disprove the theory of life after death by eating and sleeping and bathing with the recently departed. Baptiste wished to shock poor Marcel out of his interest for the Catholic Church but all he did was create more wonder and enthusiasm in the young devotee. ‘And what else do these elect heirs of god do?’ asked Marcel.
Baptiste went on to relate all the sordid behaviour from such luminaries as the sodomitic Pope Julius II, the incestuous Pope John XII, the deplorable and unspeakable Pope Benedict IX who kept a bear as his lover and the sodomitic Pope IV.
‘Sodomy seems to be very popular within the Church!’
‘I should say, in fact its compulsory!’ declared Baptiste.
A week later, Marcel went to see Father Chevalier Lecomte and expressed his intention to become Catholic. The kindly old Father was pleased and asked him why he wished to be confirmed. Marcel told him that he wished to see the six cannibal cardinals and help with the importation of Protestant virgins and to assist the handmaidens in their disproval of the existence of the spirit after death; and to see the miracle of Pope Paul II and besides, he was almost sure that he was a sodomite and that a day or two with the Pope would confirm him in this. The astonished Father Lecomte turned pale then red then choked on his rosary which he had been stuffing into his mouth subconsciously. Of course when Marcel learnt that there were no cannibals in the Vatican and neither were there any handmaidens it was like the Romans hammering in Christ’s nails all over again and as you would expect Marcel lost all interest in Roman Catholicism.
Marcel grew up and took over the family wine business after his father died and lived the life of a rich bachelor. It was said that he wore hand-stitched shoes from Italy and that his made to measure suits, which by the way he only wore once, were sent first class around the world to give them an ‘air of travel’.
It was during the great festival of Bacchus that Marcel met a young woman by the name of Marie Fournier, an artist who was very proficient with water colours. Marie was intrinsically pure and honest, a deep thinker but she was always trying to catch him out for she had such a suspicious nature due to being hurt by men in the past. They would argue and she would accuse him of deception and he would say she was always looking for the ugliness in life while he was always searching for beauty!
Marie was deeply intellectual, almost frighteningly so but she pretended to be otherwise for she felt that a man should not feel too intimidated, but of course most men were, but not Marcel and it was this that brought her closer to him. She had a cruel mouth which was not very expressive and weary eyes as if they had looked into the pit of hell and digested all that is horrible and filthy, like some creature of the night, pale and voluptuous. She feared intimacy yet secretly craved it; she drew him close only to push him away again. The act of lovemaking between them was like the ultimate sacrifice; a satisfaction in the others destruction! A blind fury of sexual congress and it was over, just like the act of eating was an explosion on the taste buds and then it was over! She made him feel like that awful Pope Benedict IX, making love to her as if she were some wild yet unfeeling bear!
An abstract force held by his tenderness and her unyielding refusal to let him get close to her, to look upon her and touch her soft skin passionately for she was always digging, bloody digging for deception! The alchemist observing the chemical reaction in him, calculating every movement, gesture and every word for the Philosopher’s Stone – Lies!
He knew all this, he understood her suspicions and her jealousy and he matched her tooth for tooth in the action and re-action stakes, but he did not account for a third party, throwing a substantial brick at the serene glass-house they were building together.
This third party in this un-holy trinity was a crazed and equally obsessive young woman named Monique Verdier who was the complete opposite of Marie, unrefined and not very intelligent for she sought filth and only filth. She had come into Marcel’s world through their common interest in the occult and he thought his great stature would have some lasting effect upon Monique in the form of curing her escalating alcoholism. Monique was in the early stages of being in love with Marcel who in turn had nothing but good intentions and friendship to offer in return for he was in love with Marie. Monique, realising that any relationship was hopeless resorted to the brutality of the so-called ‘fairer sex’ and spoilt any chance for poor Marcel by concocting a web of lies about him and evoking Beelzebub himself to enter the arena and turn all his attention upon poor Marcel who was of course the innocent party. Marcel was indifferent to most things but some harmless off the cuff remark had been sharpened like a dagger, tempered with untruth and turned upon him, thrust into his back, his heart and cutting his throat for good measure! Lies!
Against such insurmountable and overwhelming odds Marcel did not wish to degrade himself further and so he retired from the battle gracefully – tant pis! But Marie and Marcel had reached some sort of understanding where by she would continue to try and manipulate him into revealing himself as some sort of dishonest and devilish creature and expose him while he basks in the glow of her superior magnificence – Lies!
This could not go on! The bitter regrets and the ending of their relationship were meant to be, it was part of Marcel’s education and Marie’s acceptance of herself for she seemed much older in soul years than Marcel; it was their history and development and nothing could change the laws of nature, Marcel would have gladly let her trample upon his cold corpse that her feet should not disturb the grass; that he would bear her name upon his heart to the grave and beyond, whatever did lay beyond! Nevertheless, the fact was established: Marcel knew that he would never see her again and he also knew that he would probably love Marie until the day he died!
In time the palettes of the poor imbeciles who drank Chateaux Delvaux became more adventurous and sought something more worthy of their standing. Marcel, with no business sense or any financial understanding drove the family vineyard into the ground till it was no more. Marcel became bankrupt and upon investigation at the Chateaux the body of a young girl was found strangled in the cellars. Any more than this could and would not be spoken of for Marcel was accused of deeds so disturbing that there is no need to put such foul extremes of human behaviour into print! There was lots of talk about hideous depravity and things so unspeakable which could not be mentioned among the villagers but of Marcel there was no word for he had gone missing for over a week and the authorities were searching for him. The police spoke to Marcel’s tutor Miss Holt who had taken up a position at a nearby residence for young girls. Miss Holt spoke glowingly as to Marcel’s character and that any speculation to the abominable acts at the chateaux was not to be heeded as all forms of vulgarity were foreign and detestable to Marcel, she claimed. It seemed that the whole village had something or other to say about Marcel, those of his enemies, for they were numerous said that Marcel had gotten mixed up in the occult arts and that he was communicating with the dead and conversing with infernal spirits. In fact, this was not too far away from the truth as Marcel had indeed ‘experimented’ with ceremonial magic, namely the Grimorium Verum!
Now, Marcel was not capable of perpetrating such acts, I could find fifty or a hundred people to stand trial and confirm his integrity, honesty and general demeanour; I could summon figures from this world and the next to declare he was not a child-killer; his sister-in-law Suzanne said he was not a child-killer; his niece Ermelde said he was not a child-killer; the gardener Andre said he was not a child-killer; the local newspaper said he was not a child-killer and the Mayor said he was not a child-killer and even the local priest stepped out of his walled retreat and tore himself away from Henri the houseboy to say that Marcel was not a child-killer! Yes, God and the world knew Marcel was not a child-killer yet where was Marcel and why did he not stay to prove his innocence?
It was several years after Marcel left France and Chateau Delvaux had become a cursed place much avoided by the locals; following the discovery of three more children near the vicinity of the chateaux that the perpetrator of those horrific crimes who was brought to justice, a one Dr. Louis Marchand who had considerable access to the Chateaux and the surrounding villages for he was the physician to the murdered children; in fact, many body parts were found at the doctor’s apartment and what his intentions were was anyone’s guess. But of course, poor Marcel was unaware of such matters and remained in hiding.
Some years later in a London suburb a young family were hosting a garden party at their sumptuous home leaving the children to play in the orchard. Geoffrey Anstruther and his wife Elizabeth were part of the ‘live now pay later’ generation and they were sitting in their garden near the ornamental pond when they suddenly heard shouts from the direction of the orchard. The two children, Sylvia and Bradley came pounding into the group of adults shouting that they had killed the giant bear in the orchard. There was laughter and there were gasps and eventually Geoffrey agreed to follow the children and see the corpse of the great bear they had slain.
The children had been playing in the long grass meadow of the orchard when a large, dark figure had descended upon them with its arms raised in the air. The children were startled and Bradley threw a rock at the monster hitting its head. With a deep groan the bear fell down as the children ran away. When Mr Anstruther and the children returned to the bloody death scene Mr Anstruther, realising the awful atrocity that had occurred swiftly hurried the children away to fetch Mrs Anstruther. Geoffrey saw the figure of a man, a very dirty man with long finger nails, unkempt hair and beard wearing an oversized furry astrakhan coat. The only thing about the unfortunate devil which was not filthy was the whites of his eyes, and even they seemed a dull yellow peppered with red streaks. The identity of the man was never known because upon Mrs Anstruther’s arrival Mr Anstruther had already begun digging a hole but had they looked a little closer at the body, in fact at the signet ring he wore they would have noticed the Delvaux crest and a search of the dead man’s pockets would have yielded a faded letter from some woman named Marie, and had he looked but further still, into the heart of the fallen warrior, there in the orchard, again the name ‘Marie’ would come to light for it had been the only saving grace of poor Marcel, his only ever adventure into the existence of pure love which if not for the heavy hand of guidance from some inhuman being, may have flourished. But Mr Anstruther buried the poor wretch in the orchard where he fell and in explanation to the children and the guests he merely stated that the children had found a ferocious yet wounded badger which had to be mercifully put out of its misery. As the years and the seasons passed flowers grew and leaves fell and snow carpeted the shallow grave in the orchard and the event was just a long distant memory to the children who were now adults and married with families of their own. Yes it was all just a game a long time ago and no more was ever said about the bear in the orchard!

 

DEATH’S SONG TO HUMANITY

 

His eyes are like corpse candles, that burn;

Two fiery meteors in the dread sky...

He turns, casts off his mantle and gazes,

Heroic, from his damned dimension

With veins and tendons and muscles a strain;

And with spectral flesh aflame, he sings:

 

‘What blasphemy crawls upon the earth?

What unspeakable corruption feeds

On the contemptuous lie of God? Insult of birth,

Condemned to darkness and its deeds!

 

Priest! Upon such sordid things you yearn –

Monster-wooer of old – confess

Thy hideous sorceries upon thy flesh!

This filth which occupies thy brain;

This adoration of sense and song! See,

This vision of God leap from the unknown

To flood thy bruised mind into flight, or

Into the passionate recesses of oblivion, again!

 

Lord! Gaze upon your creation, this atrocity;

Upon the shell of pitiful man, mundane!

 

Here, anoint the secrecies born by pain,

By union numbed – the scent inhaled.

Witch! Thy body cooled by antique shame

And hammered into shapes, obscene!

 

For here shalt love’s light upon thee break!

Yieldest thou, low-born maid – awake!

See this vision swift to end and rot:

Thou art ruined by consummation of continual thought

Upon the vermin child – nature’s mockery;

Beast of unborn joys, profane...

A step in the quadrille – the dance of death,

Like a drum beat: War! War! War!

The finite brain;

The savage mind; the plague of pity,

Specimens of pathetic lusts again

Dawns upon man – the end of humanity!

An end to the foul-smelling slime and their reign!’

 

Barry Van-Asten



 

It is with regret that we must inform our gentle readers of the sad death of Percival Grott (1927-2014). Son of the celebrated conservationist Peregrine Greville Grott, he was born in Yorkshire and educated at Oxford. Percival had many interests from vegetable sculpting to writing unreadable poetry, but his main passion was collecting works by Aleister Crowley, and rare items of erotic literature. His widow, Margaret, said that ‘the passing of the old pornographer leaves a gaping hole which will be very hard to fill in the filth trade!’ By way of a tribute we offer one of his lesser obscene poems: ‘Alys in Cumberland’.

Andrea Romanov

 

ALYS IN CUMBERLAND

By Percival Grott

 

 

There was no reason in the game –

Some specimen of man, Pollitt by name;

Herbert Charles ‘Jerome’, of that ilk,

Wrapt in several yards of silk,

Was struck by passions idle glance,

Enchanted by young Alys, perchance

He thought the poet’s heart was hollow

And seduced him from the ‘trance of sorrow’!

Jerome, Trinity man of Kendal, born

With golden hair brighter than the dawn,

Talks wide on Beardsley, Whistler and Rops –

On Wilde the old dear never stops!

But dull and decadent, he’d rather be

In fine lace and copious corsetry,

For he found his companionship and his desire

In one drawn to magick who did aspire

Towards the higher realms of the spirit

But the spiritless Pollitt was eager to kill it!

Young Alys climbed mountain tops with ease

Singing sonnets on the breeze;

Handsome and rugged, he smoked a pipe –

Poor Pollitt was never the outdoors type!

And as man and wife, they lived together:

Jerome and Alys, aesthete and lover!

 

The two went roaming the Lakeland fells

But Alys was deep in his poetry and spells

And cursing some doddering old fool named Waite

In the Easter vacation of ninety-eight!

When it came to climbing Jerome was clear:

‘I don’t want to break my finger nails dear!’

But the poet stood tall and declared:

‘My fruiting genius must be aired!’

And so he began to extemporate

Verse upon some old King’s fate –

 

Alys: ‘Yea! Here lay the throne of Cumberland

Where King was eager to command!

Like Caesar, didst he Royal rule,

Depraved and murderously cruel!

He flashed, and the gateway ‘ere, lay broke:

No minstrel nor no knave had spoke,

Yet spied he a wench in the little brook,

Ripe to yield the old King’s pluck!

But madness marked the maiden’s face

And caused the King to turn apace,

For Lo! his aged member like asparagus, stood

Wilting on Wastdale, no fire in its blood!

“By God!” He said “Why thus so weak of mind

That I cannot satisfy her forwards or behind?”’

Jerome: ‘Hush! Dear Alys, for your leprous song

Lingers in Lakeland air too long!’

Alys: ‘Brute! Ofttimes I think thou must be dead

For no passion of song resides in your head!’

Jerome: ‘Alys, dear Alys, you do produce some rot!

There is no rhapsody in your verse and no sign of a plot!

But tell me you will, fate of King and Cumberland!’

Alys: ‘Jerome the old fool fell away to a whimper in his hand!’

Jerome: ‘Thy damned art is like pustules and boils –

Your poetic scabs ooze satanic oils!

And your course is set for dark things and fame

And notoriety shall follow hand in hand, the same!’

‘The Cloud Upon the Sanctuary’ enfolds me’ Alys said

When he realised the love between them lay decidedly dead!

For the Cambridge bard found the casm ‘tween the lovers wide

And in a momentary pause that love had painful died!

Poor Pollitt with his sad frame turned towards his home

Must here have the last word on Alys, dear Jerome:

Jerome: ‘He was always searching for the ultimate sin –

And in the end it was the Plymouth Brethren that done ‘im in!’

 

 

 

THE WAND OF SILENCE

Excerpts from the Magickal Diaries

OF AUDRAREP

PART SIX

 

                                   

                                    Indubitably, Magic is one of the subtlest and most difficult of the sciences and arts. There is more opportunity for errors of comprehension, judgement, and practice than in any other branch of physics.

                                     

                                    Aleister Crowley 1875-1947

 

 

 Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law

 

 

After five years of silence (H.P.K.) in which the Great Work was abandoned on Thursday 20^th April 1995 e.v. the Great Work is begun again [becomes active: R.H.K.] on Monday 7^th August [Sun in Leo] 2000 e.v. [the 96^th Year in the Aeon of Horus].

 

 

He taketh up the Sword and he sings unto Ra Hoor!

 

Day One

Monday 7th August. 6.25 p.m. I made my magical affirmation! I have given ten days to see a definite and positive change – be it by a word or a deed or a thought. Ten days! And ten days shall see me at its end either marked under the logos and performing the G.W. – or dead! I re-affirmed my oath: Love is the law, love under will. 01.30 a.m. Dharana on tip of nose using A.M.P.H.

Day Two

Tuesday 8th August. I dreamt that I was climbing a mountain in the glorious sunshine but I could not go up and I could not go down! A bit like me in general at the moment! I must throw myself into situations beyond my measures, even distasteful to me, and remain objective.

Day Four

Thursday 10th August. 03.00 a.m. Prithivi Tatwa and astral formation. I began feeling ill today. For some reason my mind turned to Theosophy and I thought of going to the Blavatsky Lodge – it must be some sort of delusion caused by the illness!

Day Five

Friday 11th August. 04.00 a.m. Dharana on moving pendulum, quite good. I felt much worse today, really quite ill and pains all over. I slept from 2.30-3.50 p.m. and felt a little better for it. ‘Make thee an island and fortify it’ – make thyself into an island and strengthen it against external forces!

Day Seven

Sunday 13th August. I received a sign of the G.W. – as I had sworn to accept all phenomena as a definite sign directly to me I cannot ignore the significance of it. I am beginning to understand my period of silence more. I can also see how Frater _____. was carefully placed in my way and all the signs are pointing towards me taking up the robe of initiation once again, but I must remain objective.

Day Nine

Tuesday 15th August. 01.30 a.m. Chakras. I dreamt I was in a secret garden with lots of animals and I felt that I was being watched. There was a cat all trussed up with vine and I freed it. There were hordes of spiders in an old cupboard drawer. I had a sort of revelation last night (my being was flooded with the idea): (a) I am to give away all my possessions, and (b) walk towards the east, taking my sick body as far as it will go before falling dead, like the elephant and its graveyard. To sleep with nature through all the elements; drinking from the springs and rivers with no fear of death or disease, eating from the fields and the forests, with no importance on life whatsoever. I have been re-reading Crowley’s Confessions over these past nine days of my oath and ordeal and I realise now that my abandoning of the G.W. was necessary. I needed to grasp the fundaments of life before I could proceed upon the path. Obstacles have been placed in my way both great and small which had to be overcome.

Day Ten

Wednesday 16th August. 01.30 a.m. Astral; physical limitations within. The current of will for the ten days of ordeal – the burning of the declaration ‘Let it vibrate throughout the universe and place upon me the supreme current of will and open mine eyes and mine heart...’ ‘Love is the law, love under will.’ [and on the reverse: the seal of the Neophyte].
Thursday 17th August. 01.30 a.m. I called upon the H.G.A. for a sign relating to the G.W. to guide me. I got into my asana: hands locked in yogic mudra (active and passive). Chakras and the signs of the grades, (with L.V.X. – H.P.K. – Horus/enterer). Tatwa: blue disc (air). Invoke Shu – the brilliant blue penetrated the whole of my being. I rose in the astral body but instead of vertical I travelled horizontally (but the outcome was the same, if more effective). There was no blackness, just pure white. I used ‘Thelema’ as my mantra and increased the speed until I was unconscious of doing it. The astral soared into the whiteness and became extremely fatigued until the astral suddenly slowed down of its own accord, without me noticing it immediately. It was difficult to move, it almost came to a complete halt, so I assumed H.P.K. and the astral increased at a great rate into the air. This happened two more times and I used the sign of the enterer to continue. Images appeared which I counted as distractions. I invoked the pentagram of air and fixed it in my Ajna. I lost consciousness and regained consciousness at 02.30 a.m., where I rose and read Magick.
03.30 a.m. A Vision of the Elixer [Amrita]. It cascaded over me in torrents, not downwards, but its source was from below. I was bathed in it and its consistency was as thick ‘dew’ – a strange amber quality, or milky sap. It was unending and seemed to evaporate into the skin.

1. Positive: Active – the Sun.

2. Negative: Passive – the Moon.

3. The Conjunction – the Sun and the Moon combined.

It was uncontrollable and no matter how hard I willed it to stop, it would not.

Saturday 19th August. Strange how my will is working in accordance with my wishes and how things around me seem to be ‘arranged’ as I desire; too numerous to list but happening daily. But this illness all the time – why? The lock on my door [front door to stairwell] is broken. It can be opened from outside, but strangely not inside! I did an invocation to protect the threshold. Thus I have no fear in leaving the door open while I am away at work. I have also noticed physical changes in my appearance, there is a ‘brightness’ all of a sudden, as if from within. The will is strong, so strong that I have to refrain from thinking certain things for fear of bringing about the actuality.
Sunday 20th August. Still feeling a little ill. I have deliberately chosen against performing any magical workings, except what is recorded, despite the ‘fatal force’ I feel inside. I must begin at the beginning – I have sought the Baphomet obscure! ‘Poised’ is a good description of my current state.
Monday 21st August. The front door has now been fixed. Reading Confessions.
Tuesday 22nd August. 01.35 a.m. some excellent work with the chakras. Dharana on Ajna and used mantra: A.M.P.H. I was ill most of the night, not quite feverish, but something odd beneath the skin is going on! It has all happened since the tenth day of the ordeal operation –I fear there is much to come!
Wednesday 23rd August. 01.30 a.m. Chakras – formulation. The robed astral body in the sign of H.P.K. I used mantra: A.M.P.H. – numerous auditory hallucinations. I ended the work at 02.30 a.m. Later: A dream within a dream – I woke at 04.30 a.m. hearing the sound of a heart beating, which then became footsteps and someone then touched the bed which made me shout out. I saw an image of my brother at the side of the bed and he said ‘someone is outside!’ I actually opened my eyes on seeing him standing there and was completely surprised not to be in another location. Strange, but I have no motivation to do anything since returning to the G.W. even though I have much to do: photos for an exhibition and paintings etc.
11.15 p.m. The Final declaration! [Unto the H.G.A.] Its culmination leading either to the Holy Robe of the G.W. – or Damnation! Indefinitely, without reservation and with obedience unto the Law of Thelema! I cannot discuss the nature of the obligation, but failure of its fulfilment will result in my abandoning of the G.W. – Love is the law, love under will.
Thursday 24th August. 12.45 a.m. Chakras. Mantra: Y.H.V.H. quite good. Will in Motion.
Friday 25th August. 04.00 a.m. I attempted some astral work but was too tired. I am beginning to feel the importance of the work once more, so much so that I refrain from thinking things in the ordinary sense for fear of bringing about their consequences. I must remain silent, vigilant and above all, objective. The lust of result is a hideous worm, lust is base and the appropriate state is a reposed and reflective contentment, like glimpsing something from the corner of the eye, not the central focus, but in one’s peripheral range of vision. No lust; no striving after phenomena – failure is only a reflection of success. I understand its (al)chemical process, though language escapes its description: ‘vessel – medium – objective [the Magical Link]. Results continue!
Saturday 26th August. 04.00 a.m. I returned home, feeling severely tested. My own bigoted mind has been exposed to myself! I have learnt much in my failure! 04.50 a.m. I attempted Dharana with ‘Do what thou wilt’ as my mantra and it flameth in my brain like kisses until awakening! 2.00 p.m. I re-cast my obligation to the H.G.A. in plain English so that even He may understand and not toy with His brother adept! The consequences thereof still stand: Love is the law, love under will.
Sunday 27th August. Morning dream: I was in a house, modern interior and furnishings. A breeze blew from the hall and made the drawing room door close. I went to the front door and noticed it wasn’t locked (this was about 3 or 4 a.m.) As I shut and locked the door, I attracted the attention of some men outside (there was a twisted lace curtain veil covering the door). A man knocked, wanting some assistance. I told him to go away. He tried his own keys in the door and I heard other voices urging him on. I became abusive and swore at him. I then stormed to the drawing room to fetch a metal bar with a heavy spring coil on the end and I went back to the hall with it. I saw a man with a brick smash the glass in the door. The door flung open and in he rushed. I tried to strike him with the rod but he avoided the blow! The end! Moral: Don’t draw attention to yourself. By locking the door I attracted unwanted forces and set in motion a hostile current! The magical operation made on Wednesday 23rd August is reaching its conclusion, but not its desired objective! I await the newly directed current to manifest. I made it physical and cut the + on my arm to invoke the internal will in the external matter (or ‘cloak of the will’).
Monday 28th August. At a loose end and even after extending my magical working to include today, I feel the current has fallen flat! Though there were definite changes around me! At 6.30 p.m. I re-affirmed my Magical working in the Temple; consecration of the circle; L.B.R. (Pent and Hex) after I generated sufficient Kundalini; Invoked the four quarters with the current in the form of a fire-ball, white hot, being my will symbol. I re-stated the charge; banished in the four quarters and settled upon Dharana on the R.C. the fragile rose, symbol of beauty [see Formula of Tetragrammaton] and the cross of sorrow and death – the rose of flesh and the rose of blood: spirit over matter... I gazed upon a pyramid under the fragrant night sky filled with stars about the full moon, while using the mantra: A.M.P.H. and I saw the ragged bones of ‘he that once lived’ chained to a wooden wheel and silhouetted against the blue sky of night. I passed through into nothingness in the sign of the enterer (Horus). I then perceived this sickness in humanity and I remained impartial to it. I saw (as if seeing through a woman’s eyes: Nuit/Isis) my swollen breasts before me and I gazed down and saw the swollen belly, that veiled the fertile womb, ripe with life, yet beyond this, I could not pass, though I tried tearing asunder the veils that hid the ways before me. And all had ended! I fell into gentle sleep! Tuesday 29th August. 12.45 a.m. Chakras with mantra: A.M.P.H. I rose into the air... I found myself in bed with a small monkey [the Ape of Thoth, the Cynacephalus]. I was afraid of his bite and tried to fix the window so it was open enough for air to get in but not enough for the monkey to get out! 9.55 p.m. I realise that I cannot be angry with those S.C. (Secret Chiefs). It was my own stupidity that failed in not expressing the correct details in my obligation etc. I await the outcome of the new energy, both astral and physical. I shall continue to interpret all phenomena, be it by a word, a sound, a thought or a dream, as a direct communication unto me!
Wednesday 30th August. 12.30 a.m. Chakras with mantra: A.M.P.H. Invoke Pentagram of Air (blue disc) God: Shu. There was a disturbance outside at 12.45 and the work ended. But there was a good transference of consciousness from physical to astral body. Then later a vision: I was in a place familiar to me and wearing some strange ‘visionary material’ over my head. I received a vision of the B.V.M. [Blessed Virgin Mary]. She became material in the form of a painted ceramic dog that was very hot to touch. It cooled down and became organic – an actual living dog. It began to attack me, but I fooled it and lured it into another room where I locked the door on it and I returned to normal consciousness at 04.30 a.m.
A strange mark has appeared upon my flesh, on my left shoulder above the + I cut. A triangle has become visible (in the same manner as the circles I received when undergoing the O=O Ritual).
Thursday 31st August. 12.30 a.m. Chakras – very good. In the sign of H.P.K. I used the mantra: A.M.P.H. and rose into the air in my robed astral form. I held the ‘black egg’ of spirit (Akasic) which I invoked in Ajna. Quite successful, but I realise I am missing certain formula that only Magick in Theory and Practice contains: Preliminary Invocation of the Goetia: Keeping four ‘things’ sustained in motion proved very good as a way of distraction and deep concentration; this was: (1) the path of the astral body, (2) H.P.K. (3) mantra: A.M.P.H. and (4) Tatwa: Akasa. I found it easy to transfer the consciousness, but without the formula I am lost! It is strange, but I feel positive about the current I have initiated, yet I also feel a little forsaken, a transitionary period (as in I.A.O.). Later, the current manifested and I could do nothing – some sort of side effect or ‘leakage; perhaps and some beautiful woman could not resist from stroking my face, in fact, she could not pull her hands away from me.

Monday 4th September. 1.30 a.m. Chakras – attempt transverse (exterior formulation) which was good. Tatwa: Earth (yellow square), sign of the enterer (Horus). Vibrate names etc: ‘Adonai Ha Aretz – Auriel – Phorlakh’. Very positive. I saw a woman laughing and she had golden skin. I vibrated the names and she crumbled before me, thereby showing that she was not a true dweller of the element. I saw a landscape, many came upon me and I saw them off using the names and the signs: Illumination – the external elixir. I half awoke from the state and more visions came. 10.50 p.m. Asana: my position (left leg under anus, right leg over left. Left hand on right ankle; right hand on right knee) till 11.10 p.m. I decided on a new regime of exercise and meditation practices.
Tuesday 5th September. 1.30 a.m. Chakras (using the new ‘external technique’) Transverse drawing-up. Breathing very well, better than ever, steady, deep and rhythmical. Tatwa: Prithivi (Earth: yellow square), projected outside the body and drawn into the Ajna. It grew in size. The robed adept made the sign of the enterer and passed through the yellow square. The vibration of God names and then followed uninterrupted visions – I gazed upon a map of a very Holy City with the main thoroughfares circling off from the form of a cross. I could see the layout of the Temples and the buildings all in white marble. Too numerous to describe in detail! One phrase which kept being repeated came to my ears, this was: ‘Return to Igusta’ (or ‘Igustas’). The vision ended at 3.00 a.m. 11.30 p.m. Asana till midday (30 minutes).
Wednesday 6th September. 1.00 a.m. Chakras (new: the astral is hovering over the physical body and placing the hands on the chakras as a channelling method to ‘flood’ the chakra centres with energy [light]). I transformed the ‘will symbol’ into the astral and entered the Temple. L.B.R. Invocation – sign of H.P.K. and rising on the planes in the astral body; Tatwa: Prithivi (Earth: yellow square) drawn into the Ajna. Breathing good. I expand the Tatwa and pass through in the astral body in the sign of the enterer. Vibration of God names. I stood on the threshold but I became very fatigued and overcome by a sudden overwhelming harmony – like looking at an object and noticing something much nicer and interesting from the corner of one’s eyes! Not distinct, but suddenly lost if the eyes are turned towards it directly! Very good! Thesis – anti-thesis – synthesis. I took an oath to abstain from magickal workings until the operation has come to pass – in the name of the Crowned and Conquering Child: So Mote It Be!
Sunday 10th September. I made the kabbalistic Cross, performed the Middle Pillar exercise and the LBR and reaffirmed my oath that I shall refrain from any further magickal work (unto Nu, and apart from certain exercises) until the SC’s (Secret Chiefs) have brought about that which I have willed and stop toying with me!
Tuesday 12th September. 1.10 a.m. Middle Pillar and four-fold breath. I woke in a strange state at 11.45 a.m. and felt this great force swell within me.
Wednesday 13th September. 2.00 a.m. Middle Pillar. Open the Temple in astral. Tatwa: Prithivi (Earth: yellow square) Very good. I did some planetary table notes. 11.25-11.40 p.m. Asana: My Position.
Thursday 14th September. 1.15 a.m. Middle Pillar. Open the Temple – Circumambulation, LBR and Kabbalistic Cross. In asana: Dharana on Prithivi Tatwa. Rise in the astral body and use mantra: A.M.P.H. with slow breathing. Sign of the enterer to pass into Tatwa (still in asana form). Deep and intense concentration followed and I felt the surging sea within my head, the great tide: Whooooooosh! It never left me! I vibrate the God names: Adonai-Ha-Aretz, Auriel, Phorlakh and I also used them in a mantra form. Almost complete success. My endeavours are showing positive results. I fell into the swoon of strange dreams with the sea still whoooooooshing in my Ajna! Woke at 7.00 a.m. and performed the LBR. The rest of the day and night was endless idiocy and debauchery, almost fighting with the person I love dearest in the world and having to call in sick at work. D____ and K_____ and I decided to go and ‘shout at the mountains’ in Wales!
Friday 15th September. I went to see ______ and he went uncontrollably mad last night after I parted from him and tried to cut his wrists (he’d already cut his chest with a sharp knife). He went to the doctors and I waited in the Library for him, reading ‘Nature of the Beast’ and ‘Joe Orton’s Diaries’.
Saturday 16th September. I did some notes on the tables of correspondences till 3.30 p.m. I hardly ate all day! What is this flame – the Middle Pillar? The solar ‘eucharistos’ etc has fired it into glories unknowable! But what is its use and how can it be channelled? I am the slave of Gods, I know not!

Sunday 17th September. Drained of enthusiasm, yet I did some notes on the Tatwa till 4 p.m.
Monday 18th September. 12.30 a.m. Notes on the nature of ceremonial conjuration (kliphotic) till 2.10 a.m. Middle Pillar and open the Temple with the intention of doing some Tatwa work, but too tired. I re-affirmed my oaths and obligations etc towards the G.W. (Great Work) and cut the + into Tiphereth [the heart, breast] at 3.20 p.m. this past week has been a magical desert and things must change now that the furniture of the mind is being organised into magical equilibrium. There is much to do! I spoke to Frater ______ and he will come to see me on 30th October. Later, more phenomena occur: some female stranger felt compelled to kiss me and she was extremely beautiful.
Tuesday 19th September. 12.30 a.m. Middle Pillar Exercise. Open temple but felt extremely fatigued in the Tatwa so I abandoned the exercise. I felt terribly congested, despite stopping smoking recently, but today, I took up once more the gentleman’s habit. I was so bored. ‘S’ back from Venice and will call me tomorrow. Phenomena again – another woman is compelled to force her lips on mine: where will it end?
Wednesday 20th September. 03.00 a.m. Middle Pillar Exercise. Open Temple. I felt ill on waking at 11.00 a.m. chest infection and no motivation, a feeling of being ‘between worlds’ all night. I think something terrible is inside me! My lungs are drawn to dark matter! At the hour of Kephra (midnight) an Invocation ceremony, skyclad. Circumambulation. Qabalistic Cross and open the Temple. L.B.R’s. I used an elaborate form of the _______:the inversion, the Holy of Holies. At the climax I read aloud the Qabalistic Prayer by E. Levi from his ‘magical Ritual of the Sanctum Regnum’ (translated by W. Wynn Westcott. Redway. 1896.) the Temple was closed at 12.40 a.m. after the banishings etc.
Thursday 21st September. 02.00 a.m. Charged with the light I performed the Middle Pillar Exercise. Opening of the Temple: Dharana on Prithivi Tatwa. I was too ill for any real revelations to occur. I declared that I was unafraid of death and even welcomed it, as brother unto brother! 12.20 a.m. I woke from a terrible night of hardly sleeping at all. Very congested and severe headache. The headache began to recede at 03.30 a.m. I made some notes on certain Talismans.
Friday 22nd September. Spoke to ‘S’ and said I will see him Monday 25th. Read some ‘Claudius the God’ by Graves. Sunny out and I feel like death. My mind is turned upon unwholesome things! Tried to sleep from 5-6.30 but no good.
Wednesday 27th September. I woke at 05.00 a.m. to find my astral body thrown from the bed and flung to the floor. I shouted for ______ and he saw my astral body frozen in some stupid position and he was angry with me.
Monday 2nd October. I woke three or four times in the morning because of a bad chest and I had the feeling that I was definitely not alone! I felt hands upon the bed and then they were upon me! I was being pulled from the bed, downwards. My spirit body was being forcibly removed from the bed by my legs! I could not stop it. I was pulled from the bed to the foot of the bed and onto the floor. I was unable to speak or shout. Some elemental spirit had broken through the veil. At first I could not see her, I only felt her presence, but I knew her to be young and lithe limbed, and she semi-appeared, translucent and she had large black almond-shaped eyes. It was the ‘Passion and the Prayer’* all over again! I managed to get one of her fingers into my mouth and I began to chew through it. This is when she became visible. It was so clear and lucid. Suddenly I thought ‘what if this isn’t reality and I’m chewing through my own finger?’ I did eventually regain consciousness. My hands were hot and under my chin – typical position for this sort of possession. I looked around for evidence of manifestation but I knew it as just another spiritual attack in a chain of many I have experienced. Have I incorrectly banished in the past? My soul has become a prey to some terrible influential being who either wants to dominate me or destroy me. Or is it a warning to return to the vows (or a warning not to) of adeptship? It is almost ‘Abramelin’ in its maliciousness!
Tuesday 3rd October. _____ phoned me today. She wants to stay at my place till she finds her own flat in London. It is strange, but she has become unconsciously part of my magical work. I knew what the result would be of her returning home, (depression and dissatisfaction) as if I was working on auto-pilot (as in the talismans I have been using). But this I think is more completely part of the way of the Tau – outer appearance: silent and still (calm); inner appearance: the whole universe is being moved to achieve the will! Over the next few days I arrange an interview for her (she got the job) and I put her up at my place for a week and helped her to find a place to live (which she did).
Friday 6th October. I met ______ at _____ station and took her for her interview. She stayed at my place and moved into her new flat on Sunday 22nd October. No magic of significant importance was conducted while _______ stayed with me.
Tuesday 24th October. I dreamt that I was being pursued through woods by a horned animal. I kept stumbling and trying to hide from it. It was like a beautiful white unicorn. Later in the dream, the unicorn became a pretty young maiden with a horn on her head. She was sad because everyone kept running away from her, so I took pity on her, and ran no more!
Friday 27th October. 04.30 a.m. Open the Temple. Prithivi Tatwa. Exhausted.
Saturday 28th October. A Magical Working: 5.20 p.m. I opened the Temple (lustration of instruments), circumambulation; Qabalistic Cross; lesser Banishing Rituals and Invoking Pentagram etc. Dharana on the work to be done. I used aspects of the war-like Mars for this working. Mars (Saturday). Archangel: Samael. Hour: Mathan. I made my obligations unto the Holy Names etc. I declared the intention of the working, (to cause change to occur in harmony with my will). And after the spoken rite (vibration of sound) the talismanic power was invoked [fire]. The talismanic magical link was released into the aethyr and ceremonially burnt. Then followed some moments of thought upon the work and I then gave the Licence to Depart, causing no harm to any being without or within my sphere etc. I closed the Temple with the Lesser Banishing Rituals. At the commencement of the rite, the heavens opened up and the rain fell hard and the vibrations hung dull and heavy in the air like incense [the stress upon the aethyr]. I felt the potent force of winter returning. I lay somewhere between the stars and the planets, awaiting the great eye’s opening. I saw creation and destruction as one and the change has been of enormous import (which is why I could not talk to ____ last night). I have once more wrought a fissure between the adept and humanity. But it is wrong for it is not the way of the ‘Fool’ to work apart from humanity; one must love and suffer the pains of humanity or be content to be a brother of the left hand path. At 7.50 p.m. I cut the Tau cross upon my breast to symbolise the Great Work manifested into flesh, the magical undertaking of the aspirant, and the culmination thereof, which has begun on this day – 28th of October in the Year of Horus XCVI.

Sunday 29th October. I prepared for the Great Working at 5.30 p.m. I drew the moon’s planetary Seals of Power. I purified the flesh (lustration). I consecrated the Instruments of Art and at the stroke of 6 p.m. the hour called Rana (Levanah), I opened the Temple with the usual rituals. With the Instruments of Art – a silver wrist band consecrated to the purpose of the work (silver for the moon); the moon symbolises change, love and the feminine principle (the downward triangle/ water). Archangel: Gabriel. The Hexagram. Colour: White. Cardinal Point: west. I thus invoked Gabriel and the appropriate forces for the work. As in last night’s work, I used the talisman (that contains life yet is dead). Invocation followed by a period of contemplation on the Planetary Seals, signs etc. Banishings and closing the Temple after the Licence to depart! I placed the seals into a small pouch which I will keep on my person.
Monday 30th October. At 7.40 p.m. I prepared the talismans (planetary symbols of Venus). The hour: Tafrac (8 p.m.). Venus (ruler) the circle and the cross. In Hebrew: Nogah. Archangel: Hanael. Intelligence: Hagiel. Spirit: Kedemel [Venus – love, beauty, harmony etc]. At 8 p.m. I cast the circle. Lustration (with the talismans outside the circle). I entered the circle and performed the Opening Ceremony with the Lesser Banishing Rituals etc. I lit the incense and performed the invocation. I passed the talismans three times through the incense smoke to charge them. And then a period of contemplation on the work to be done took place. After the Closing Ceremony I wrapped the talismans into the appropriate coloured material and placed them into a wallet. The circle was dismantled and how quickly the spirit moves! I was contacted at 9 p.m. by ____. in connection to the work, sounding strange and distant and sad. A meeting was arranged.
Tuesday 31st October. At 02.00 a.m. the Magical Link – the sacred ‘life-force’ of the talisman. The guard fell and my soul poured forth. I met ‘S’ later and we discussed the exhibition and we went to see about hiring gallery space.
Sunday 5th November. I felt strange and otherworldly, like being on some tremendous threshold. I don’t know what it is, but something within is growing strong and visual perception seems to have changed; the air is as thick as fog and full of luminous particles. My chest and shoulders are painful and I feel very tired!
Monday 6th November. I woke at 11.30 a.m. and noticed that my arms and chest are covered in a rash (that’s why I felt strange and light-headed all last night). I thought it may be meningitis. I went to the Hospital. I had a high temperature and it appears I have Rubella, a form of German measles. Glands are up on my neck etc. I need to get 3-5 days complete rest with paracetamol. Diagnosis: rash and mild fever today. O/E. Rubella form rash and occipital LN enlargement. Probable Rubella. I prepared to sit it out! I made some experiments in pendulum dowsing using a pendant with an image of the Virgin Mary (in gold) attached to a 10 inch length of cord, held 1 inch above a piece of paper, giving ‘yes’ (clockwise) and ‘no’ (anti-clockwise) answers to questions [these have been omitted].

Tuesday 7th November. My body is completely covered in the rash now. My thoughts turn to mortality. I am awful to behold, thank the Lord no one has to but the adept! I began coughing blood. Frater ______ contacted me at 6.30 p.m., a friend of his shot herself – quite dead! _____ also called and was concerned about me.
Monday 13th November. It has been a strange night, as if the spirit has descended upon me – there is peace, utter peace and no words can describe it. Nothing can be said, it is an everlasting well of man’s despair and joy in one. Like walking into a tomb or the chamber of some pyramid or Holy shrine; or standing upon a battlefield and feeling the great human loss. Love and be loved, unconditionally – pure and divine – and only by God – though which God or Gods, I know not. A prayer ignored! I have done all I can do in winding down, there are things to complete before the unknown!
Tuesday 14th November. 02.00 a.m. completed a minor magical work. An important insight: If you want something very badly, pretend it does not exist!
Thursday 16th November. I met ‘S’ and I told him that I’ve lost interest in putting on this damn exhibition (paintings and photographs). I laid my soul bare before the poor fellow and he tried to win me over with ‘life, beautiful life’ but I suppressed it with ‘death, glorious death’. We hugged and parted on friendly terms though I fear for the last time!
Sunday 19th November. 11.35 p.m. – I destroyed the Moon and Venus talismans and they are released from their obligations.
Thursday 23rd November. A beautiful woman couldn’t take her eyes off me all night and it was like meeting someone from the past whom I knew before in a previous life.
Monday 27th November. I had a revelationary dream last night (this morn): I was in a crowd of people and suddenly it struck me – I boomed down the street with a primeval yell, tugging at my jacket lapels like some Dickensian ‘Artful Dodger’. I was free! Nothing really matters, I played with people as if they were toy dolls for manipulating – everyone is everyone, yet I am the only me! It is catastrophic and it left me in a strange spiritual spell all morning!
Tuesday 28th November. I realised why the rituals failed – I have been channelling every ounce of magical energy into other distractions, namely writing.
Friday 1st December. Vision: objects, lucid and could be sustained mentally. I felt an electrical charge in my head, below the right ear (this is typical of an astral attack) which then travelled to the top of my head and down the spine where it entered my left kidney, and the pain was immense. I had automatically touched my right ear and it was completely numb. Suddenly, my body and the bed sheets are plucked from the bed and thrown to the corner of the room, to the ceiling – what devil is this that comes to me in this state to cause astral harm? I never slept all night!
Saturday 23rd December. 04.30 a.m. I formulated the Kabalistic Cross, using the astral in the form of the enterer. Success! [In vision of 4.30 a.m. this morning: I made a small geomantic/demonic sigil out of some material, very small and intricate. On being asked I said it should be made from bread (dough, probably Eucharistic in nature), it resembled a small segment from a paper doily.
Sunday 24th December. 02.00 a.m. I formulated the Kabalistic cross and opened the T. in the astral.

Monday 25th December. 04.30 a.m. I formulated the Kabalistic cross and entered in the astral but I was too tired to make much progress!

Lux Mirabilis – an exercise in which one visualises the body slowly enveloped in coils of ketheric light, like a mummy in its wrappings.
Each Sephira on the Tree of Life is related to a different time scale:
Geburah – Human lifetime.
Chokmah – The lifetime of our planet. Tiphareth – Time’s essence (absolute time).
Binah – (associated with Saturn) the Greek Chronos. Governs relative (Yesodic) time sequence of our daily lives.
Thoth, the Ibis-headed God is the measurer of time.



 

 

THE MAGIC BOOK WORM

REVIEWS BY BARRY VAN-ASTEN

777 and Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley.

Edited and introduced by Dr. Israel Regardie, a man who knew Crowley personally, this extensive collection of selected writings on the Qabalah is presented in three main sections. In part one there is Crowley’s essay ‘Gematria’ which is reprinted from ‘The Temple of Solomon the King’, found in The Equinox, volume I, number 5. Gematria is a system based on the relative numerical ‘Qabalistic’ value of words as found in the Hebrew Alphabet. Other forms of the literal Qabalah are ‘Notariqon’, in which every letter of a word is taken from the initials or is an abbreviation of another word; and ‘Temura’ which is a permutation, substituting one letter for another letter in the Alphabet etc. Also included is Crowley’s ‘An Essay upon Number’. In the second part of the book we find Liber 777 which first appeared in 1909 and is a series of tables showing the relationships or ‘correspondences’ between certain numbers and objects, thoughts, ideas, symbols, elements and planetary spheres; various religions and magical systems – it is a structured, magical and philosophical dictionary. And finally, in part three, we find ‘Sepher Sephiroth’, which first appeared in The Equinox, volume I, number 8. It is a dictionary, listing hundreds of Hebrew words with their numerical values and equivalent words of the same numeration. This book is an invaluable source of reference!


The Equinox of the Gods, being The Equinox, volume III, number 3 – by Aleister Crowley.

First published in 1936, The Equinox of the Gods presents the reader with the facts and circumstances concerning, what is undoubtedly Crowley’s greatest achievement, that of Prophet of the Law of Thelema. This fascinating book takes an in-depth look at the revelation which occurred in Cairo on 8th, 9th and 10th April in the year 1904, when Liber Al vel Legis (The Book of the Law) was delivered to mankind. The Book was dictated by a discarnate being named Aiwass, the Minister of Hoor-Par-Kraat (the Lord of Silence), to the great Master of Magick, Aleister Crowley, who is the Priest of the Princes, Ankh-Af-Na-Khonsu.
Within the three chapters of the Book of the Law, is a new order or ‘Law’ for humanity, that of ‘Do What Thou Wilt’. This new Law of Love, Liberty and Light supersedes the old law of compassion and weakness and of the ‘dying god’ religions in which suffering brings about redemption and sin which is considered shameful, as in Christianity, whereby the acolyte and worshipper are obedient servants to God’s will; in turn, the new ‘aeon’ or era of Thelema (Greek for ‘Will), the Law of the Strong, states that mankind must realise the true will of the individual and understand one’s purpose in existence, for ‘every man and every woman is a star’.
Included in The Equinox of the Gods are the beautiful illustrations of the Stele of Revealing and a facsimile of the original manuscript in Crowley’s handwriting, along with the Comment. For years Crowley struggled to understand the significance of Liber Al and strove to ignore the message, but over time he came to realise the tremendous importance of what occurred during those three days in Cairo; he came to believe whole-heartedly in the authenticity of The Book of the Law and he dedicated the rest of his life to teaching and studying its beautiful and terrifying wisdom. Thelema is like no other religion, for it does not aspire to become dogmatic and ‘established’ and its followers are ‘few and secret’, but it is for the individual who chances upon the ‘glad word’ and comes into contact with Thelema on their long journey through life to decide for themselves, if the Book, like so many other Holy Books of the past, inspires the mind and speaks to the heart and uplifts the soul with wondrous rewards – Love is the law, love under will.


The Equinox – Volume I, numbers 1-10.

The Equinox is a massive periodical containing esoteric writings, poetry, short stories, plays and material on yoga techniques and magical instruction. Volume I comprises of ten bulky issues or ‘numbers’ published twice yearly at the vernal (spring) and autumnal equinox between 1909 and 1913. The motto on the front cover of each volume reads ‘The Method of Science’ and ‘The Aim of Religion’ and it is subtitled ‘The Review of Scientific Illuminism’; in a magical sense it is known as the ‘encyclopaedia of Initiation’ and it gives very specific and structured methods of attainment in the occult arts. Its author was the celebrated occultist and so called ‘wickedest man in the world’ Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) who published it at his flat and Headquarters of his magical order the A.A. or the ‘Silver Star’ at 124 Victoria Street, London. Other contributors included: John Frederick Charles Fuller (1878-1966), Victor Benjamin Neuburg (1883-1940), Frank Harris (1856-1931), Meredith Starr [Herbert Close] (1890-1971), and George Raffalovich (1880-1958).
It was Crowley’s wish to produce a masterpiece of the English language in its printing and content – ‘My special job was to preserve the Sacred Tradition, so that a new Renaissance might in due season rekindle the hidden Light. I was accordingly to make a Quintessence of the Ancient Wisdom, and publish it in as permanent a form as possible... the Equinox, in a word, was to be a sort of Rosetta Stone’. The Equinox was the official organ of Crowley’s magical order, the A.A. and it was the ‘first serious attempt to put before the public the facts of Occult Science, so-called, since Blavatsky’s unscholarly hotch-potch of facts and fable, Isis Unveiled’.
Throughout several issues are serialised essays such as ‘The Herb Dangerous’ which looks at the psychological effects of drugs and it is found in the first four numbers of the Equinox. ‘The Temple of Solomon the King’ a biography of the magical career of Frater Perdurabo [Aleister Crowley] has the first four numbers written by Fuller and the rest written by Crowley.
Number 1 (published March 1909) contains such works as ‘At the fork of the road’, ‘The Soldier and the Hunchback ! and ?’ with a special supplement: ‘John St John: The Record of the Magical Retirement of G. H. Frater O. M. (Crowley). In number 5 (March 1911) there is the special supplement Liber CCCCXVIII ‘The Vision and the Voice’ and in number 6 (Sept 1911) is the supplement featuring ‘The Rites of Eleusis’, seven invocations or ‘rites’ of the planets: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury, Luna. There is an account of an incarnation in Egypt in number 7 (March 1912) titled ‘Across the gulf’, and in number 9 (March 1913) is the extraordinary ‘An Evocation of Bartzabel the Spirit of Mars’, and finally in number 10 (Sept 1913) is a translation of Eliphas Levi’s ‘The Key of the Mysteries’ as a special supplement.
There is no doubt that to the student of the occult and the enthusiast of Crowley’s work, The Equinox is essential reading and it incorporates everything from the early Golden Dawn teachings to Crowley’s own magical system and the Law of Thelema in the Aeon of Horus. Many of the major writings have been published elsewhere of course and a less expensive option is to purchase Regardie’s ‘Gems from the Equinox’ which has most of the important magical writings, but to have the complete set of The Equinox is truly a wondrous and invaluable thing! Outstanding!


The Equinox – Volume III, number 1.

After five years of silence since the publication of volume I (publication alternated five years of silence with five years of speech and so Crowley considered volume II of The Equinox to be an unpublished ‘volume of silence’), volume III of The Equinox appeared in March 1919. With its blue cloth covers it became known by the familiar name of the ‘Blue Equinox’. The book has many works of magical instruction and esoteric knowledge specific to Crowley’s Thelemic system of the occult the A.'.A.'., or Great White Brotherhood, a ‘Body of the highest Initiates, pledged to aid mankind. It offers instruction in the Way of Spiritual Progress and Illumination to individual seekers. The work of the A.'.A.'. is called Scientific Illuminism. This may be briefly expressed by quoting its motto: "The method of Science; the aim of Religion." Every seeker is taught how to realise Truth for himself, by means accurate and well-tested. The O.T.O. is the first of the great religious Societies to accept the Law. It trains groups by way of progressive initiation. The Equinox publishes all instructions and pronouncements of the A.'.A.'. and O.T.O. It also publishes such poetry, drama, fiction, and essays, as are sympathetic to this programme, so far as space permits.’
This first number of volume III contains such important works as: ‘Liber II – The Message of the Master Therion’, ‘Liber DCCCXXXVII – The Law of Liberty’, ‘Liber LXI’, ‘Liber LXV – Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente’, ‘Liber CL – De Lege Libellum’, ‘Liber CLXV – A Master of the Temple’ (an account of the attainment of Frater Unus in Omnibus [Achad], Charles Stansfeld Jones), ‘Liber CCC – Khabs am Pekht’, ‘The Seven Fold Sacrament’, ‘Liber LII – Manifesto of the O.T.O.’, ‘Liber CLXI – Concerning the Law of Thelema’, ‘Liber XV – The Gnostic Mass’ and the special supplement is ‘Liber LXXI – The Voice of the Silence: The Two Paths, The Seven Portals’.
The book shows a definite progression from the first volume and there is a clear turn towards more magical and Thelemic writing rather than short stories and plays. Sadly other numbers were not published during those ‘five years of speech’ but if number one is anything to go by other numbers would have been of the highest quality and content. The book is remarkable as it stands alone in volume III (until other books by Crowley were issued under the Equinox volume III banner later on, such as ‘Eight Lectures on Yoga’ and ‘Liber Aleph’ etc), and it is an excellent addition to any occult student or Crowley scholar’s library! Recommended!


Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden – by Aleister Crowley.

Crowley wrote the book during a stay at his Highland home, Boleskine, on the banks of Loch Ness, after his wife Rose gave birth to their daughter Nuit Ma Ahathoor Hecate Sappho Jezebel Lilith Crowley, on 28th July 1904. Crowley and his friends whom he invited to stay: his physician Dr. Percival Bott, who joined the party in readiness for Rose’s confinement; Gerald Kelly (1879-1972) the artist and brother to Crowley’s wife Rose; Ivor Gordon Back (1879-1951), a friend of Aleister’s and Gerald’s from their Cambridge University days. Ivor was editing Crowley’s ‘Collected Works’ at the time and he later became a surgeon at St. George’s Hospital, London. Crowley’s Aunt Annie also attended and looked after the household while the men enjoyed the Highland delights of salmon fishing, shooting, climbing (Crowley taught Bott and Back the rudiments of climbing), playing billiards and the Laird’s (Crowley’s) wine cellar! Rose, in her convalescence was bored and so Aleister decided to entertain her by writing a ‘suitable book for her’. He wrote a chapter a day on his typewriter and read what he wrote to the rest of the party, except his Aunt Annie! – ‘Ivor and I, with some assistance from Gerald, collected such of these manuscripts as had not been destroyed, and with ‘The Nameless Novel’, we composed a volume to carry on the literary form of White Stains [Aleister Crowley. 1898] and Alice [Aleister Crowley. 1905]; that is, we invented a perpetrator for the atrocities.’ [Confessions. Aleister Crowley]
And so the book begins with an account of its imaginary author’s life; the author, who is only known by the letter ‘K’, we are told by an un-named editor who stole the manuscript, was born around 1860 in a ‘hunting shire of England’ to parents who were reasonably well off to enjoy a life of leisure. ‘K’ is a delicate and religious youth whom his tutors respect for his learning. After taking Holy Orders, he gains a Chaplaincy in Paris where he is accepted and honoured for his work amongst the poor. During the many hours of idleness he composes ‘hymns’ and spends his evenings at a restaurant known as the ‘Au Chien Rouge’ with the celebrated artists who frequent the place [Crowley is here thinking of the ‘Chat Blanc’ in the Rue d’Odessa, where he enjoyed many an evening in the year 1902].
‘K’ gives himself sexually to a ‘boat-captain on a Seine steamer’ and after marrying a young and beautiful English woman, they honeymoon in Cairo [Crowley is on familiar ground as he and Rose spent their honeymoon in Cairo]. The couple go to the notorious ‘T – Club’ and there are soldiers, fish porters and all the good and bad of Egyptian society indulging in orgiastic behaviour. It is here that ‘K’s’ wife is violated numerous times!
Then we come to the ‘Nameless Novel’ itself which is about an archbishop and his obscene atrocities which defy belief. Then we are treated to the ‘Juvenilia’, poems which include: ‘The needs of the Navy’, ‘After the Fall: a page from the Book of the Recording Angel’ and ‘The Parson’s Prayer’. Then from the ‘Bromo Book’ we have: ‘Long before dawn’, ‘Stephanos’, ‘To Pe or not to Pe’, ‘Home thoughts from abroad’, ‘One way of love’, ‘Outside the Spanish Cloisters’, and ‘Force’. Then come the Limericks: ‘The sailor ashore’, ‘Triolets’, ‘Birthday Ode’, ‘Rosa Mystica’, ‘Celia’, ‘The automatic girl’, Micturating Mary’ and ‘The poet abroad’.
The book is an interesting example of pornographic literature and ‘schoolboy humour’ written merely as an exercise to amuse his wife Rose. Crowley invented many new words and phrases but its only real value is as a ‘period piece’ for Crowley students and scholars. Its content fails to titillate but be warned as it does include such content as incest, torture, necrophilia, coprophagia, cannibalism, sodomy... you get the idea, all the things that put the ‘Great’ in Great Britain! Crowley said about the book in his ‘Confessions’ that ‘my object is not merely to disgust but to root out ruthlessly the sense of sin!’ Not a bad endeavour! Humorous and degrading and jolly good fun! Enjoy!

 

PEGAMINA

By BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 

PART SIX

 

THE SERMON ON THE MOUND

It had been a long day, and as the day grew into night Pegamina, finding no place to rest, decided to wander a little from the track she had been keeping to. She hadn’t wandered very far when she heard the sound of raised voices which seemed to come from behind a stone wall. As she crept silently towards the wall, the voices began to grow louder until she could almost hear what was being said, though not quite, for the sound of a flowing river seemed to half drowned out the voices.
As she peered over the wall, she could see what all the noise was about, for there, by the side of the riverbank was a small collection of odd-looking creatures, all sitting around the side of a grassy mound, on top of which, stood a very important looking bird, a raven in fact, waving its wings and stamping its feet in all directions. And as she looked about the scene before her, she noticed by the side of the river, paying no particular interest in what was being said, was the unspeakable toad in all his glorious unspeakableness, flat on his back and demanding in full voice the traditional treading, quite oblivious to the fact that he was being enormously ignored.
Without being seen, Pegamina climbed onto the stone wall and lay down upon it as quietly as she could and listened.
‘Furthermore’ croaked the raven ‘did not this flame burn in the days of two moons!’ And here the raven began to quote a strange passage from the holiest book in Sleepy Sadness known as The Pense or The Dense, which begins:

‘The noble knight nuffs his nade

In quanerous rodells by the lade.

Slurping Goodbar – jatacasted,

Tome Slanty, the gurlet, purdoranced.

Undew norns did slapeless, wadelgrabe,

Through dripping, guey, Noggin Slabe;

Where Ular bellowed: “Boll Berwick’s Bruste!”

Upon Mount Zosta, the Wibble’s Puste!

Run rackled, begulfed in momulous grief

And entant the sloven, wooly reef.

Nitter, natter, the bewilderous things;

Toadish brines by eternal springs.

Yimmer, yammer, the moondish flats,

Osgan Moord, contentus grats;

Bagal, finial, rugged rand, and

Slip slither, silty sand!’

Now, I should point out that The Pense or The Dense is considered to be the holiest of books ever communicated by the Superior Being known as the Ancient. It was received after the dawn of time by an unknown prophet who spent his life teaching that which was divinely given to him. But unfortunately, the prophet was as deaf as an old pair of boots and could not be sure whether the book was to be known by the title of ‘The Pense’ or ‘The Dense’. And so it came to be known as ‘The Pense or The Dense’. The book is written in the style of an epic saga. Telling of how wars were lost and wars were won, and it gives an excellent account of noble deeds and acts of treacherous villainy. In fact, it is a complete history of Sleepy Sadness and its surrounding villages. Tradition has it that there were a further nine volumes originally written, but only the first has survived, which alone takes a lifetime’s study, and so most serious students can do no more than browse through its incomprehensible contents. Kingdoms have been won and lost between those who refer to it as ‘The Pense’ and those who know it as ‘The Dense’. And even now, scholars are disclaiming its authority as the word of the Ancient on the grounds that the prophet, being stone deaf, must have misheard and misspelt most, if not all of the book, and so it is therefore unreliable, and some would say unreadable. But still it continues to be the most revered and worshipped object in Sleepy Sadness.
‘Furthermore,’ croaked the raven once again, ‘I come not to you, but for you. I ask not that you shall follow me, only that I shall lead!’ And here, he began to recite the parable of the crooked man:

 

‘In a crooked room, there lived a crooked man,

And in his crooked dreams, he dreamt a crooked plan:

He dreamt a crooked man could fly, far from this crooked earth

And crooked eyes looked on the light dimmed by his crooked birth.

He walked across the crooked floor and around the crooked walls

And to the crooked table where the crooked curtain falls,

Where there stood a crooked book full of crooked words

And little crooked pictures of little crooked birds.

Sat by the crooked window he watched the crooked sky

And asked the crooked question why a crooked man can’t fly.

He searched his crooked heart and found the reason why:

A crooked man has a crooked soul so a crooked man can’t fly!

But the crooked man had one desire since he was a crooked boy:

He had to know within himself if a crooked man could fly!

So in a suit of crooked feathers he drew a crooked breath

And the crooked man leapt from his room and to his crooked death!’

By now Pegamina was becoming quite sleepy and found it difficult to listen to what was being said. Only small snatches of words seemed to reach her ears between the sound of the rippling river and the wind blowing in the trees. And only distorted images of the raven, flapping its wings and stamping its feet upon the mound, seemed to enter her tired eyes.
As she lifted her heavy eyelids, first one then the other, she could see that all that was left of the strange gathering around the mound were just a few noisy shapes in the moonlight.
‘...and we are merely wished into a world we no longer wish to participate in. It is ourselves; our very selves, with all its desires and pains and infantile fancies that cause this everlasting sorrow. For let us not forget the words of the Ancient: “It is in the mystery of the heart where sorrow’s seeds are sown, and it is in the cradle of our tears where sad seeds come to bloom!” And furthermore...’ she heard between the river and the wind. But she had fallen fast asleep.

 

‘Furthermore’ croaked the raven