THE VOICE OF FIRE
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Allan Bennett
Volume 1, Number 8. Spring Equinox An CX ☉ in 29° Pisces, ☽ in 1° Aries.
Friday 20th March 2015 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.
Love is the law, love under will.
Volume 1, Number 8 of the Voice of Fire is dedicated to Allen Bennett
[1872-1923]
CONTENTS
Editorial
Allan Bennett
Liber Porta Lucis
The Qabalah: an introduction
Allan Bennett in the Press
Liber Tzaddi vel Hamus Hermeticus
The Supreme Ritual: The Invocation of Horus
To Allan Bennett MacGregor
Liber Cheth vel Vallum Abiegni
An example of a ritual composed by Greatly
Honoured Frater Iehi Aour
Songs of Love and Infinity
The Wand of Silence
The Magic Book Worm
Pegamina part nine
The Wand of Silence
The Magic Book Worm
Pegamina part nine
EDITORIAL
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law
With the passing of the dark days of winter and the welcome return of the sun we find it is that time of year once more when we like to sweep the dust from the magical workspace and brush the cobwebs from the altar, not forgetting of course to remove any remnants of the ‘bloody sacrifice’ etc. etc.; a time of cleansing and re-valuing both physically and spiritually –
Open the Temple door that the Light may flood therein!
It was in this frame of mind that I came upon my old magical diaries (O spare us the gory details!) and I was instantly reminded of the importance of keeping magical records, something many tend to overlook. A daily journal of events and thoughts is essential when working spiritually and magically, it is the embryo from which formula develops and it is a sort of ‘confessional’ or link with the higher genius which resides in all of us. I will not offend our gentle readership, namely Miss Janet Ocelot, 29, the Grange, North Uist, Outer Hebrides, in reproducing them here and discrediting further my already tarnished reputation, but as an example of good record keeping I wish to turn to Mr Victor Benjamin Neuburg (1883-1940) and an entry taken from his ‘The Magical Record of Omnia Vincam’, partially printed in Jean Overton Fuller’s ‘The Magical Dilemma of Victor Neuburg’ – a document long overdue for publication!
It is the day prior to the summer solstice of 1909 and Victor is staying at Boleskine House, in Scotland, the home of Aleister Crowley and his wife Rose. Also at the house is Kenneth Ward (1887-1927) of Emmanuel College, Cambridge who travelled with Victor by train from Cambridge on 16th June.
Victor slept in a bedroom on the ground floor of the house and also on the ground floor was the ‘Chamber’, a small room prepared by Crowley with a magic circle on the floor, an altar with incense, a magic sword and an ankh. Victor would enter the chamber wearing his magical robe and perform rituals and meditate during his ten day Magical Retirement beginning on Saturday 18th June and ending on Monday 27th June 1909 to pass the grade of Probationer and become a Neophyte:
Monday 21st June 1909:
5.02 a.m. Performed ‘Bornless One’ Ritual [1] about 10 p.m.* At midnight, Banishing Ritual. [2] At about 1.30 a.m. my Guru [3] entered and gave me certain advice.
At about 2.25 a.m. I performed ‘Bornless One’ and Banishing Rituals, afterwards rising on the planes. [4]
I travelled upwards swiftly and easily again meeting ‘Gabriel’. He gave me the same information as before. He was clad in white, with green spots on his wings; upon his head was a Maltese Cross.
After some time I slept by the fire, awaking at about 4.25 a.m. I suffered two emissions seminis (possibly only one; I am not quite sure) with somatic dreams. This is due probably to one of the following three causes, or of course, any combination of them – (a) my sleeping close to the fire; (b) lack of food; (c) lack of exercise. Personally I back the first cause. (No joke is intended here.)
I again performed the ‘Bornless One’ Ritual about 4.30 a.m. I left the Chamber just after 5 a.m.
It is now 5.10 a.m. I am tired out, after performing the Banishing Ritual I shall go to bed.
9.25 a.m. Up at 9.02 Washed, brushed teeth.
9.18 [sic] Brekker. Egg, bacon, tea, a little water. [5] I feel pretty fit but a little tired. I shall retire to the chamber almost immediately, when I have exchanged my piggers [6] for my robe. I slept well.
9.30 a.m. I depart for the chamber.
Mid-day. Almost immediately on reaching the Chamber did I perform the Preliminary Invocation. I then meditated upon myself for an hour, sometimes reading Thelema. Just after 11 a.m. I performed the Banishing Ritual, the Preliminary Ritual, burnt incense, recited Aum Mani padme Hum, and rose upon the planes. I went very far indeed. Early I met my Angel. I slew him. I then rose through many planes; eventually I was detained by my Mother, a huge brown woman, my Father, a little green man; a voluptuous woman; and an hermaphrodite. They sought one by one to detain me. I passed them all.
At length I reached a coffin, labelled.
Resurgam of the tenth sphere
I was now forcibly drawn into this, but escaped into a whirlpool of light, wherein I was utterly absorbed. Rapidly I sank back, reaching my body at about 11.25.
Then did I meditate and read Thelema. (I want some decent blotting paper. I shall shortly need a new notebook.)
It is now 12.08 I shall return to the Chamber. I have taken a sip of water. I have a certain book on Magic with me. This I shall read the Chamber.
5.57. I studied the Magic Book in the Chamber until 1.20, when I performed the Preliminary Invocation. Afterwards I read and meditated again, being summoned to lunch at 1.50. Egg and spinach, toast, water. I returned to the Chamber at 2.09, where, almost immediately, my guru joined me, and we talked of Magic and other matters. My Guru left in about half an hour. I then spent the time mostly in thought and meditation. I may have slept a little, but scarcely at all, if at all.
At 4.40 I performed the banishing Ritual and the Preliminary Invocation. Then I burned incense, and said mantra, Aum mani padme hum.
I rose on the planes, reaching rapidly the white light. I struggled through to the top where I was crucified by two angels. I threw the angels off with [ie by means of] the Pentagram, then I floated about in space helplessly, attached to the Cross. This also I got rid of by the Pentagram.
I reached soon after a whirlpool or fountain of red light; struggling through this, I was confronted by a Red Giant against whom I was powerless, though I attacked him furiously by every means in my power. All my weapons and words were useless against him. He cut me to pieces and chased me back to my body, effectually preventing me from rising by falling upon me every time I strove to rise.
I had rather great difficulty in arranging myself in my body after my return, failing once or twice in the effort. At length, however I accomplished the feat successfully.
I was back again a minute or two before five. Took a very hot bath, for I was somewhat wearied. An hour or two after lunch I had a cigarette; I am now smoking another. Smoking staves off hunger excellently.
I find that my Guru – unto whom be peace – has taken the magic book I was studying. I want it back, badly.
It is now 6.14. I shall return to the Chamber. I fear I shall have great difficulty in keeping awake tonight, though I do not feel tired now. I hope to continue this experiment for a week at least and, with luck, more.
My Guru entered about five minutes after I had returned to the Chamber.
7. Dinner. Venison, boiled potatoes, toast, bread-and-butter pudding, Water.
It is now 7.27. I shall return to the Chamber.
I slept until about 10.30, when I was awakened by my Guru, who made the waking process more effectual by ‘dowsing’ my head in cold water. (He did this also a day or two ago, by the way.) I then received further instruction in the Signs of Horus and Harpocrates, illustrating the signs (apparently) to the satisfaction of the Chief. At 10.45 I began operations, performing first the Preliminary Invocation. I then prepared charcoal, and performed the Banishing Ritual, burned incense, and encanted mantra, Aum tat sat Aum.
I rose at once, slaying the red Giant with the Harpocrates formula; then I slew a Black Giant. I then became a green triangle (apex upwards) in a violet crown or circle; then a blazing comet flaming in the hair of a God; than a flaming star. After this I became absorbed in and identified with white light. This experience was accomplished by extreme ecstasy.
I found myself in the Court of Horus (he was jet-black), who gave me two tablets inscribed INRI and TARO respectively. I now found that I had no hands they were severed at the wrists. Horus sent me out to gaze at the clear blue heavens, wherein were myriads of stars. He pointed upwards; I could not mount any higher although I tried (or someone tried) to attach the sword and the ankh to my feet.
I had the greatest difficulty in returning, struggling on the floor for some minutes.
At 11.15 I was sufficiently recovered to summon my Guru. I stumbled when going downstairs to fetch this note-book, breathing heavily.
Upon performing the sign of Harpocrates and smoking a cigarette I quite recovered; my Guru is still with me, talking. It is now 11.55. I am quite normal.
My Guru instructs me till 12.30 when he goes to fetch me water. (This last paragraph is intended to cast no reflection upon the eloquence and erudition of my holy Guru).
*This of course refers to the previous night. This remark applies to certain other entries in the record. I would note here that my copy of the Bornless One Ritual, lent me by my Holy Guru, is in manuscript.
There are many fine examples of magical diaries such as ‘John St John’ Liber DCCCLX The Equinox vol I number I; ‘The Magical Records of the Beast 666’ by Symonds and Grant; Liber LXXXIII ‘The Urn – the Diary of a Magus’; ‘A Master of the Temple’ Liber CLXV. The Equinox, vol III number I; ‘The Magical Diaries of Aleister Crowley. Tunisia 1923’. Stephen Skinner and also of interest is James Wasserman’s ‘Aleister Crowley and the Practice of the Magical Diary’.
Notes:
1. ‘Bornless One’: from ‘Fragments of a Graeco-Egyptian Papyrus on Magic’ translated by Charles Wycliffe Godwin. 1851. See also Liber Samekh (Magick) and the Preliminary Invocation of the Goetia.
2. The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram.
3. Neuburg’s ‘Guru’ was Aleister Crowley.
4. ‘Rising on the Planes’: see Magick in Theory and Practice, chapter 18 ‘Of Clairvoyance and of the Body of Light’ III.
5. Neuburg was a strict vegetarian until Crowley convinced him to eat meat.
6. ‘Piggers’: Pyjamas.
May all our hearts be full of the glory and joy of spring in our blessing and worship to the prophet of the lovely Star!
Love is the law, love under will.
The Voice of Fire welcomes submissions
(poetry, short stories, articles and reviews etc). Please send all submissions
to the editor at barryvanasten418@hotmail.com
have known him in the Golden Dawn
ALLAN BENNETT
(1872-1923)
Sunday 8th December 1872: Charles Henry Allan Bennett is born in London. His father, an engineer, died when Allan was a young boy. Allan is raised by his strict Catholic widowed mother. Allan suffers from acute asthma. ‘His cycle of life was to take opium for about a month, when the effect wore off, so that he had to inject morphine. After a month of this he had to switch to cocaine, which he took till he began to "see things" and was then reduced to chloroform. I have seen him in bed for a week, only recovering consciousness sufficiently to reach for the bottle and sponge. Asthma being a sthenic disease, he was then too weak to have it any more, so he would gradually convalesce until, after a few weeks of freedom, the spasms would begin once more and he would be forced to renew the cycle of drugs.
No doubt, this constant suffering affected his attitude to life. He revolted against being an animal; he regarded the pleasures of living (and above all, those of physical love) as diabolical illusions devised by the enemy of mankind in order to trick souls into accepting the curse of existence. I cannot forbear quoting one most remarkable incident. When he was about sixteen, the conversation in the laboratory where he was working turned upon childbirth. What he heard disgusted him. He became furiously angry and said that children were brought to earth by angels. The other students laughed at him and tried in vain to convince him. He maintained their theory to be a bestial blasphemy. The next day one of the boys turned up with an illustrated manual of obstetrics. He could no longer doubt the facts. But his reaction was this: "Did the Omnipotent God whom he had been taught to worship devise so revolting and degrading a method of perpetuating the species? Then this God must be a devil, delighting in loathsomeness." To him the existence of God was disproved from that moment.
He had, however, already some experience of an unseen world. As a little boy, having overheard some gossip among superstitious servants, he had gone into the back garden and invoked the devil by reciting the Lord's Prayer backwards. Something happened which frightened him.
Having now rejected Catholicism, he took up Magick and at once attained extraordinary success. He used to carry a "lustre" --- a long glass prism with a neck and a pointed knob such as adorned old-fashioned chandeliers. He used this as a wand. One day, a party of theosophists were chatting sceptically about the power of the "blasting rod". Allan promptly produced his and blasted one of them. It took fourteen hours to restore the incredulous individual to the use of his mind and his muscles.’ [Confessions. p. 180]
Allan is educated at Hollesley College (Suffolk) and Bath.
1890: Following Allan’s education in Bath, he becomes employed by Dr. Bernard Dyer, public analyst and consulting chemist in London. In 1890 Bennett is eighteen years old and he reads Edwin Arnold’s poem ‘The Light of Asia’, he also studies Hiindu and Buddhist scriptures. Also at this time he experiences Shivadarshana (yogic trance) – unity of the Universe and self-annihilation. By profession Bennett is an analytical chemist.
February 1894: Aged twenty-one, Bennett joins the Hermetic Order of the Golden dawn and takes the magical name Frater Voco.
Allan lives in South London with his friend and fellow Golden Dawn member Charles Rosher.
Charles Henry Rosher is born in London in 1858. He is an engineer and designer, writer and political activist. He becomes a member of the Golden Dawn on Saturday 5th may 1894 (three months after Bennett) and he enters the Second Order on Saturday 26th September 1896. Charles died in Middlesex in 1936. His Golden Dawn magical name is Frater Aequo Animo, ‘with the soul of a horse’. Rosher published his ‘Poems’ in 1897.
After George Cecil Jones was unable to help Aleister Crowley at Boleskine during his preparation for the Sacred Magic of Abramelin, Crowley asked Rosher, who accepted but stayed less than a month.
1894-95: Allan Bennett became a member of the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society. Bennett's friend and fellow Golden Dawn member F. L. Gardner also belonged to the E.S.
1894-95: Allan Bennett became a member of the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society. Bennett's friend and fellow Golden Dawn member F. L. Gardner also belonged to the E.S.
Friday 22nd March 1895: Allan Bennett entered the Second Order of the Golden Dawn and takes the magical motto Iehi Aour (I.A.) ‘Let there be Light’. Bennett was also known as the White Knight, as in ‘Alice through the Looking Glass’:
‘We called him the White Knight, from Alice in the Looking Glass. So lovable, so harmless, so unpractical! But he was a Knight, too! And White! There never walked a whiter man on earth. He never did walk on earth either! A genius, a flawless genius. But a most terribly frustrated genius.’ [Aleister Crowley from Kenneth Grant’s ‘The Magical Revival’. 1972. p. 82]
Wednesday 13th May 1896: Florence Farr, Allan Bennett, Charles Rosher and F. L. Gardener (Frater D.P.A.L.) invoke Mercury – Taphthartharath at the Golden Dawn Temple. The ritual was written by Bennett.
January (Spring) 1899: Crowley and Bennett meet at the Isis Urania Temple, Great Queen Street, London.
‘In the spring of 1899, at some ceremony or other, I was aware of the presence of a tremendous spiritual and magical force. It seemed to me to proceed from a man sitting in the east, a man I had not seen before, but whom I knew must be Very Honoured Frater Iehi Aour, called among men Allan Bennett. The fame of this man as a Magician was already immense. He was esteemed second only to Mathers himself; and was, perhaps, even more feared.
After the ceremony we went into the outer room to unrobe. I was secretly anxious to be introduced to this formidable Chief. To my amazement he came straight to me, looked into my eyes, and said in penetrating and, as it seemed, almost menacing tones: "Little Brother, you have been meddling with the Goetia!" (Goetia means "howling"; but it is the technical word employed to cover all the operations of that Magick which deals with gross, malignant or unenlightened forces.) I told him, rather timidly, that I had not been doing anything of the sort. "In that case," he returned, "the Goetia has been meddling with you." The conversation went no further. I returned home in a somewhat chastened spirit; and, having found out where Iehi Aour lived, I determined to call on him the following day.’ [Confessions. p. 177-178]
The next day, Crowley goes to Bennett’s address in South London (which he shares with Charles Rosher) and asked Bennett to share his rooms at 67-69 Chancery Lane in return for lessons in the magical arts. They also experiment with drugs.
November 1899: A scandal erupts concerning homosexuality at Cambridge, Crowley is named and others such as Bennett are implicated.
November-December 1899: Bennett suffers with severe asthma during the winter and Crowley and George Cecil Jones fear he may die. Crowley and Jones perform a ritual from the Goetia to evoke Buer. Bennett needed to move to a warmer climate to survive.
Monday 15th January 1900: Crowley receives letters concerning the ‘scandal’ stating that the Police are watching his movements and that of other resident Bennett at Chancery Lane.
Lilian Horniblow gives Crowley £100, the cost for Bennett to leave England.
1900: Allan Bennett leaves England and arrives in Sri-Lanka. He meets Dr. Cassius Pereira (later Venerable Kassapa Thera). They become good friends. On his departure from England, Bennett gave Crowley his magical notes.
July 1901: Bennett gives his first Buddhist talk – ‘The Four Noble Truths’ to the Hope Lodge of the Theosophical Society in Colombo.
Tuesday 6th August 1901: Crowley arrives in Colombo, the Capital of Ceylon. He meets Bennett who is known as Ananda Metteyya.
‘Mathers, had told me a certain incident which had taken place between himself and Bennett as follows:
He and I.A. had disagreed upon an obscure point in theology, thereby formulating the accursed Dyad, thereby enabling the Abra-Melin demons to assume material form: one in his own shape, another in that of I.A. Now, the demon that looked like I.A. had a revolver, and threatened to shoot him (D.D.C.F.), while the demon that resembled himself was equally anxious to shoot I.A. Fortunately, before the demons could fire, V.N.R. (Mrs. Mathers) came into the room, thus formulating the symbol of the Blessed Trinity.
Frater I.A.'s account was less of a strain upon P.'s faculties of belief. They had had, he said, an argument about the God Shiva, the Destroyer, whom I.A. worshipped because, if one repeated his name often enough, Shiva would one day open his eye and destroy the universe, and whom D.D.C.F. feared and hated because He would one day open His eye and destroy D.D.C.F. I.A. closed the argument by assuming the position Padmasana and repeating the Mantra: "Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva." D.D.C.F., angrier than ever, sought the sideboard, but soon returned, only to find Frater I.A. still muttering: "Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva." "Will you stop blaspheming?" cried D.D.C.F.; but the holy man only said: "Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva." "If you don't stop I will shoot you!" said D.D.C.F., drawing a revolver from his pocket and levelling it at I.A.'s head; but I.A., being concentrated, took no notice and continued to mutter: "Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva."
Whether overawed by the majesty of the saint or interrupted by the entry of a third person, I.A. no longer remembered, but D.D.C.F. never pulled the trigger.’ [Confessions. p. 234]
Bennett works as a tutor to the younger sons of Ceylon’s Solicitor-General Ponnambalam Ramanathan (1851-1930) – the guru Sri Parananda, in exchange for instruction in yoga and Hinduism.
Saturday 17th August 1901: Crowley and Bennett move about 60 miles north east to the city of Kandy and take a furnished bungalow ‘called "Marlobrough" (God knows why!) on the hills, by a stream, with waterfall complete, overlooking the lake, the temple and an amateur attempt at an hotel. We hired a hopeless headman, who sub-hired sleepy and sinister servants and dismissed all these damnable details from our minds, devoting ourselves with diabolical determination and saintly simplicity to the search for a spiritual solution to the material muddle. Our sojourn, short as it was by worldly reckoning, proved to be pregnant with events of internal import. The tyrant time took his first wound in Kandy.’ [Confessions. p. 236]
Wednesday 28th August 1901: Crowley begins yoga under Bennett’s teaching and takes a ceremonial vow of silence for three days – then he practices asana, pranayama, mantra, dharana and meditation. He did two weeks then Crowley went away for a week before returning.
‘When Allan was mediating, it was my duty to bring his food very quietly (from time to time) into the room adjoining that where he was working. One day he missed two successive meals and I thought I ought to look into his room to see if all was well. I must explain that I have known only two European women and three European men who could sit in the attitude called Padmasana, which is that usually seen in seated images of the Buddha. Of these men, Allan was one. He could knot his legs so well that, putting his hands on the ground, he could swing his body to and fro in the air between them. When I looked into his room I found him, not seated on his meditation mat, which was in the centre of the room at the end farthest from the window, but in a distant corner ten or twelve feet off, still in his knotted position, resting on his head and right shoulder, exactly like an image overturned. I set him right way up and he came out of this trance. He was quite unconscious that anything unusual had happened. But he had evidently been thrown there by the mysterious forces generated by Pranayama.’ [Confessions. p. 246]
Wednesday 2nd October 1901: Crowley attains Dhyana:
‘While meditating, suddenly I became conscious of a shoreless space of darkness and a glow of crimson athwart it. Deepening and brightening, scarred by dull bars of slate-blue cloud, arose the Dawn of Dawns. In splendour not of earth and its mean sun, blood-red, rayless, adamant, it rose, it rose! Carried out of myself, I asked not "Who is the witness?" absorbed utterly in contemplation of so stupendous and so marvellous a fact. For there was no doubt, no change, no wavering; infinitely more real than aught physical is the Golden Dawn of this Eternal Sun! But ere the Orb of Glory rose clear of its banks of blackness — alas my soul! — that Light Ineffable was withdrawn beneath the falling veil of darkness, and in purples and greys glorious beyond imaging, sad beyond conceiving, faded the superb Herald of the Day. But mine eyes have seen it! And this, then, is Dhyana! Whit it, yet all but unremarked, came a melody as of the sweet-souled Vina.’ [Confessions. p. 248]
He also attains it again the following day (Thursday 3rd October).
‘Again, by the grace Ineffable of Bhavani to the meanest of Her devotees, arose the Splendour of the Inner Sun. As bidden by my guru, I saluted the Dawn with Pranava. This, as I foresaw, retained the Dhyanic consciousness. The Disk grew golden; rose clear of all its clouds, flinging great fleecy cumuli of rose and gold, fiery with light, into the aethyr of space. Hollow it seemed and rayless as the Sun in Sagittarius, yet incomparably brighter: but rising clear of cloud, it began to revolve, to coruscate, to throw off streamers of jetted fire! (This from a hill-top I held, dark as of a dying world. Covered with black decayed wet peaty wood, a few pines stood stricken, {248} unutterably alone.) (Note. This is a mere thought form induced by misunderstanding the instruction of Mâitrânanda Swami as to observing the phenomenon.) But behind the glory of its coruscations seemed to shape an idea, less solid than a shadow! an Idea of some Human seeming Form! Now grew doubt and thought in P's miserable mind; and the one Wave grew many waves and all was lost! Alas! Alas! for P! And Glory Eternal unto Her, She the twin-Brested that hath encroached even upon the other half of the Destroyer! "OM Namo Bhâvaniya OM."’ [Confessions. p. 248]
Following this, Crowley and Bennett go on a pilgrimage visiting Buddhist locations from Kandy, to the Temple of Dambulla (Sri-Lanka). They go north (by coach) to the city of Anuradhapura (in Ceylon).
Mid November 1901: Crowley and Bennett part, Bennett going to the city port of Akyab (Burma) to the Lamma Sayadaw Kyoung (monastery).
Thursday 12th December 1901: Bennett is ordained as a novice monk at Akyab in Arakan, Burma. He takes the name Bikkhu Ananda Maitreya [‘Bliss of Loving kindness’], (he later uses the Pali ‘Metteyya’).
Friday 14th February 1902: Crowley reaches the Lamma Sayadaw Kyoung to see Bennett. He also writes the poem ‘Sabbe Pi Dukkam’ (see ‘Oracles’ in The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley).
‘On the 12th February I went on board the Komilla for Akyab, where Allan was now living. In the course of the day the sea air completely restored me to health. On the 13th we were off Sandaway, which did not appear fascinating. On the next day we put in at Khyoukpyu, which I had so vainly hoped to reach overland. It has a most delightful bay and beach, its general appearance recalling the South Sea Islands; but the place is a den of malaria. We had not time to land as the captain was anxious to get into Akyab the same night. We raced through the Straits, and cast anchor there about 8 o'clock -- just in time.
I went ashore with the second officer and proceeded in my usual casual manner to try and find Allan in the dark. The job was easier than I anticipated. The first man I spoke to greeted me as if I had been his long- lost brother, and took me off in his own carriage to the Monastery (whose name is Lamma Sayadaw Kyoung) where I found Allan, whom I now saw for the first time as a Buddhist monk. The effect was to make him appear of gigantic height, as compared to the diminutive Burmese, but otherwise there was very little change. The old gentleness was still there.’ [On a Burmese River (part two) from the note book of Aleister Crowley. Vanity Fair. London. 17 February 1909. p. 201]
Sunday 23rd February 1902: Bennett receives Upasampada – higher ordination.
Friday 13th March 1903: The first meeting of the Buddhasasana Samagama (International Buddhist Society) founded by Bennett who is the general Secretary.
September 1903: The first volume of ‘Buddhism – an Illustrated Quarterly Review’ (six issues from 1903-1908). Bennett’s works in the Review are: September 1903 (issue one) ‘The Faith of the Future’; ‘In the Shadow of Shwe Dagon’; ‘Nibbana’ and ‘L’Envoi’.
December 1903: Issue two of the Review contains Bennett’s ‘The Thathanabaing’ and ‘Transmigration’.
1904: Crowley dedicates his ‘Sword of Song’ to Allan Bennett.
March 1904: Issue three of the Review contains Bennett’s ‘The Law of Righteousness’.
Friday 3rd November 1905: Crowley visits Bennett in Rangoon while Rose and the baby stay at a hotel.
Monday 6th November 1905: After three days, Allan returns back to the monastery. Bennett is no longer a Bikkhu, he has become a Sayadaw.
‘His life as a bikkhu had not been too good for my guru. The abstinence from food after sunset is bad for the health, bit Allan found that after three weeks he got into the habit. But he was likely to be haunted by the ghost of his dead appetite. He had, moreover, got into a very shocking state physically from lack of proper hygiene and perhaps also of proper medical attention, as well as from his determination to carry out the strict rules of the Order. He had acquired a number of tropical complaints.’ [Confessions. p. 464]
‘"Explore the River of the Soul," said Ananda Metteya, "Whence and in what order you have come."
For three days --- the longest period allowed by the Buddhist law --- he remained in the choung, meditating on this matter; but nothing seems to have come of it. He set his teeth and settled down doggedly to this consideration of the eternal why. Here is a being in Rangoon. Why? Because he wanted to see Bhikku A. M. Why? Because --- and so on to the half-forgotten past, dark seas that phosphoresced as the clean keel of his thought divided them.’ [The Temple of Solomon the King. The Equinox Volume I, Number VIII]
Wednesday 15th November 1905: Crowley and his family leave Rangoon.
Thursday 23rd April 1908: Bennett leads the ‘first Buddhist Mission to England’ and arrives on this day, in London from Burma.
Wednesday 13 May 1908: An article appears in The Christian Commonwealth following an interview with Bennett: The Christian Commonwealth states that “he was born in London, of Scotch parentage, thirty-six years ago, received a liberal education, and followed for a time the profession of analytical chemist, under the direction of Dr. Bernard Dyer, of Great Tower Street, E.C. He seceded from orthodox Christianity and became a believer in Buddhism through reading Sir Edwin Arnold's Light of Asia, after a brief period of Agnosticism. In 1899 he went to Ceylon in search of health ; in December, 1901, entered one of the Burmese Buddhist monasteries; and received full ordination as a Bhikku, or mendicant monk, in May, 1902."
As to Bennett’s attitude of Buddhism towards Christianity Ananda Metteya says: "As far as I can gather, the position of the New Theology with which one has now more particularly to deal, is that the proof of Christianity, so to speak, lies not in the historicity of the Resurrection, but relates to a resurrection in the human being. Buddhism is in perfect agreement with that view. Buddhism regards all religions as being founded upon some very great spiritual experiences of their founders or teachers."
He denied that the highest existence was anthropomorphic, and said: "There is a highest state of existence in which individuality is merged, but this state of Nirvana does not imply annihilation, as that term is commonly used."
On immortality he described the Buddhist view thus: "There is immediate re-birth. In any one world we see only two kingdoms having life, the animal and the human. The Buddhist says there are six, and begins at the bottom with the hells, or places of punishment; the ghost world; the animal; the human; the Assouras, a curious sort of beings with powers greater than human beings ; and the next, the highest kingdom of all."
Ananda Metteya introduces his views about the six worlds by saying "The Buddhist says, he main difficulty in presenting a clear statement of Buddhism to Englishmen lies in terminology, a fact recognized and admitted by the Bhikku. 'Sin' and 'suffering,' for example, mean something entirely different in Buddhism to what they have come to be regarded in the Occidental conception. He, however, told me that he is trying to cope with this difficulty and compile a pamphlet which will explain to the Western world the tenets of Buddhism, freed from Oriental expressions.''
Wednesday 13 May 1908: An article appears in The Christian Commonwealth following an interview with Bennett: The Christian Commonwealth states that “he was born in London, of Scotch parentage, thirty-six years ago, received a liberal education, and followed for a time the profession of analytical chemist, under the direction of Dr. Bernard Dyer, of Great Tower Street, E.C. He seceded from orthodox Christianity and became a believer in Buddhism through reading Sir Edwin Arnold's Light of Asia, after a brief period of Agnosticism. In 1899 he went to Ceylon in search of health ; in December, 1901, entered one of the Burmese Buddhist monasteries; and received full ordination as a Bhikku, or mendicant monk, in May, 1902."
As to Bennett’s attitude of Buddhism towards Christianity Ananda Metteya says: "As far as I can gather, the position of the New Theology with which one has now more particularly to deal, is that the proof of Christianity, so to speak, lies not in the historicity of the Resurrection, but relates to a resurrection in the human being. Buddhism is in perfect agreement with that view. Buddhism regards all religions as being founded upon some very great spiritual experiences of their founders or teachers."
He denied that the highest existence was anthropomorphic, and said: "There is a highest state of existence in which individuality is merged, but this state of Nirvana does not imply annihilation, as that term is commonly used."
On immortality he described the Buddhist view thus: "There is immediate re-birth. In any one world we see only two kingdoms having life, the animal and the human. The Buddhist says there are six, and begins at the bottom with the hells, or places of punishment; the ghost world; the animal; the human; the Assouras, a curious sort of beings with powers greater than human beings ; and the next, the highest kingdom of all."
Ananda Metteya introduces his views about the six worlds by saying "The Buddhist says, he main difficulty in presenting a clear statement of Buddhism to Englishmen lies in terminology, a fact recognized and admitted by the Bhikku. 'Sin' and 'suffering,' for example, mean something entirely different in Buddhism to what they have come to be regarded in the Occidental conception. He, however, told me that he is trying to cope with this difficulty and compile a pamphlet which will explain to the Western world the tenets of Buddhism, freed from Oriental expressions.''
Friday 2nd October 1908: The end of Bennett’s Mission to England. He remains in Burma until 1914.
1909: Bennett’s ‘A Note on Genesis’ appears in The Equinox, Volume I, Number II.
26th November 1910: ‘An Amazing Sect – number 3: ‘Further details of Mister Aleister Crowley’ appears in The Looking Glass by John Bull. In a section titled ‘By Their Friends Ye Shall Know Them’ Allan Bennett, following his attack in a magazine called ‘Truth’ is mentioned:
‘Bennett was described as a "rascally sham Buddhist monk" and it was suggested that (in common with everyone else I knew!) my relations with him were morally reprehensible. This was not likely to worry Allan meditating in his monastery upon the evils of existence and practising the precepts of the Buddha;’ [Confessions. p. 640]
1911: Bennett’s ‘The Training of the Mind’ appears in The Equinox, Volume I, Number IV. Also, Bennett publishes his book ‘The Religion of Burma’ (re-printed in 1929).
1912: About this time, due to ill health, Bennett has to leave the Lamma Sayadaw Kyoung monastery.
1913: Bennett’s ‘Right Understanding’ appears in ‘Buddhism – an Illustrated Quarterly Review’ (issue five).
1914: Bennett arrives in England. He is in Liverpool awaiting passage to the United States but he is not allowed to travel due to his ill health.
Winter 1917-1918: Bennett gave a series of papers to a private audience at Clifford Bax’s studio. The talks are later published as ‘The Wisdom of Aryas’. Bax recalled his impression of Bennett after he met him in 1918:
‘His face was the most significant that I have ever seen. Twenty years of physical suffering had twisted and scored it: a lifetime of meditation upon universal love had imparted to it an expression that was unmistakable. His colour was almost dusky, and his eyes had the soft glow of dark amber... Above all, at that moment of meeting and always thereafter, I was conscious of a tender and far-shining emanation, an unvarying psychic sunlight, that environed his personality.’ [‘Ananda Metteyya’ in ‘The Middle Way’. Vol 43:1. May 1968. p. 23]
1920: Around this time, Bennett moved to London and became editor of The Buddhist Review and spoke at meetings for The Buddhist Society.
1923: Bennett’s ‘The Wisdom of Aryas’ published by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co Ltd. London. Bennett is acting Honorary Secretary of The Buddhist Society.
Friday 9th March 1923: Allan Bennett dies in England.
He is buried at Morden Cemetery without a headstone.
1929: Bennett’s ‘The Religion of Burma and Other Papers’ is published by The Theosophical Publishing House in India.
"Little
Brother, you have been meddling with the Goetia!" -
Bennett to Crowley. Illustration: Barry Van-Asten
LIBER PORTA LUCIS
SUB FIGURA X
1. I behold a small dark orb, wheeling in an abyss of infinite space. It is minute among a myriad vast ones, dark amid a myriad bright ones.
2. I who comprehend in myself all the vast and the minute, all the bright and the dark, have mitigated the brilliance of mine unutterable splendour, sending forth V.V.V.V.V. as a ray of my light, as a messenger unto that small dark orb.
3. Then V.V.V.V.V. taketh up the word, and sayeth:
4. Men and women of the Earth, to you am I come from the Ages beyond the Ages, from the Space beyond your vision; and I bring to you these words.
5. But they heard him not, for they were not ready to receive them.
6. But certain men heard and understood, and through them shall this Knowledge be made known.
7. The least therefore of them, the servant of them all, writeth this book.
8. He writeth for them that are ready. Thus is it known if one be ready, if he be endowed with certain gifts, if he be fitted by birth, or by wealth, or by intelligence, or by some other manifest sign. And the servants of the master by his insight shall judge of these.
9. This Knowledge is not for all men; few indeed are called, but of these few many are chosen.
10. This is the nature of the Work.
11. First, there are many and diverse conditions of life upon this earth. In all of these is some seed of sorrow. Who can escape from sickness and from old age and from death?
12. We are come to save our fellows from these things. For there is a life intense with knowledge and extreme bliss which is untouched by any of them.
13. To this life we attain even here and now. The adepts, the servants of V.V.V.V.V., have attained thereunto.
14. It is impossible to tell you of the splendours of that to which they have attained. Little by little, as your eyes grow stronger, will we unveil to you the ineffable glory of the Path of the Adepts, and its nameless goal.
15. Even as a man ascending a steep mountain is lost to sight of his friends in the valley, so must the adept seem. They shall say: He is lost in the clouds. But he shall rejoice in the sunlight above them, and come to the eternal snows.
16. Or as a scholar may learn some secret language of the ancients, his friends shall say: «Look! he pretends to read this book. But it is unintelligible—it is nonsense.» Yet he delights in the Odyssey, while they read vain and vulgar things.
17. We shall bring you to Absolute Truth, Absolute Light, Absolute Bliss.
18. Many adepts throughout the ages have sought to do this; but their words have been perverted by their successors, and again and again the Veil has fallen upon the Holy of Holies.
19. To you who yet wander in the Court of the Profane we cannot yet reveal all; but you will easily understand that the religions of the world are but symbols and veils of the Absolute Truth. So also are the philosophies. To the adept, seeing all these things from above, there seems nothing to choose between Buddha and Mohammed, between Atheism and Theism.
20. The many change and pass; the one remains. Even as wood and coal and iron burn up together in one great flame, if only that furnace be of transcendent heat; so in the alembic of this spiritual alchemy, if only the zelator blow sufficiently upon his furnace all the systems of earth are consumed in the One Knowledge.
21. Nevertheless, as a fire cannot be started with iron alone, in the beginning one system may be suited for one seeker, another for another.
22. We therefore who are without the chains of ignorance, look closely into the heart of the seeker and lead him by the path which is best suited to his nature unto the ultimate end of all things, the supreme realization, the Life which abideth in Light, yea, the Life which abideth in Light.
THE QABALAH: AN INTRODUCTION
By AUDRAREP
‘every word is a number, and every number is a word’
[The Kabbalah Unveiled. S L MacGregor Mathers]
Many occult systems use symbols and the technique of attempting to understand them can be a long process, and to the uninitiated they can seem incomprehensible. But symbols are basically a means of classification or the categorising of an idea or thought; a way of representing concepts of the inner actuality in a logical form. The ceremonial magician understands why certain gestures are used and what they represent at certain points of a ritual because the mind is exalted to a higher plain of thought where symbols are the dominant and ‘fluidic’ language.
The seeker of the Divine Knowledge must work hard for it is only by experience that the Greater Mysteries, beyond ordinary intellectual conceptions, will be revealed to the initiate in his or her understanding, in their essential, profound ‘symbolic’ form. It is all very well having an extensive knowledge of a ritual such as the Star Sapphire, but it is only through repeated performances of such a ritual that its real essence, and its symbolic keys, unlock other levels of inner understanding and interpretation.
When the student of magick uses qabalistic symbolism during ritual work, there must be a definite, subjective affect upon the practitioner and the qualities of that symbol must be felt.
‘The Qabalist goes to work in a different way. He does not attempt to make the mind rise up on the wings of metaphysics into the rarefied air of abstract reality; he formulates a concrete symbol that the eye can see, and lets it represent the abstract reality that no untrained human mind can grasp.’ [The Mystical Qabalah. Dion Fortune. Chapter 3]
There are many notable books on the Qabalah and it is an invaluable system for working with, but I would like to present here a basic understanding of its principles and philosophy.
PART I
QABALAH FOR QUIDUNCS
The philosophical foundations of the Tree of Life are extensive and it is acknowledged that the serious student should progress to more advanced studies. The Tree of Life, also known as the Minutum Mundum, is a pictorial diagram which shows the symbolic forces which operate within the Universe. The Tree contains ten distinct parts or categories into which all phenomena and life qualities can be placed. Each part, ‘sphere’ or Sephira (the plural is Sephiroth) can be studied separately or in relation with others to establish the mechanism of every plane. The Tree is also a metaphor for the physical body and the sephiroth relate to various parts of the human body. Each of these ‘sephira’ are connected by paths, twenty-two in number, which correspond to the Major Arcana of the Tarot.
The highest sephira, Kether, represents God which manifests from Ain Soph Aur (absolute nothingness). Kether is at the top of the Middle Pillar of equilibrium, with the left ‘negative polarity’ pillar and the right ‘active polarity’ pillar each side of it. The creative energy flows through Kether and down through the other sephiroth in a zigzag pattern towards the lowest sephira Malkuth, the physical plane.
The sephoroth are governed by certain characteristics which balance and affect Malkuth. As the sephiroth are set in balance so must the magician find balance with his or her own life and personality; the internal forces to refine one’s influences. The Tree consists of ten Sephiroth, which are the ten Numbers, and twenty-two paths which are the twenty-two Letters, totalling thirty-two.
‘every Number and Letter has its “Correspondence” in Ideas of every Sort; so that any given Object can be analysed in Terms of the 32. If I see a blue Star, I should regard it as a Manifestation of Chesed, Water, the Moon, Salt the Alchemical Principle, Sagittarius or What not, in respect of its Blueness – one would have to decide which from other Data – and refer it to the XVIIth Key of the Taro in respect of its Starriness.
The Use of these Attributions is lengthy and various: I cannot dwell upon it: but I will give one Example.
If I wish to visit the Sphere of Geburah, I use the Colours and Forces appropriate: I go there: if the Objects which then appear to my spiritual Vision are harmonious therewith, it is one Test of their Truth.
So also, to construct a Talisman, or to invoke a Spirit.’ [Qabalistic Dogma. Aleister Crowley. Appendix. The Collected Works, volume I]
EVOLUTIONARY EMANATIONS
There are ten emanations or ‘fruits’ upon the Tree. These spheres are creative energy and understanding these ‘spheres’ is the key to a great source of knowledge. The creative energy in the first sephira Kether (the Crown) radiates downwards through the other sephiroth and is finally completed in Malkuth (the Kingdom). The emanations are as follows:
000 – Ain Soph Aur: Limitless Light
00 – Ain Soph: Without Limit
0 – Ain: Nothing
These are un-manifested aspects, the unknown, and are symbolic of God. From this ‘nothingness’ (unknown) comes ‘something’ (known) and that something in geometrical terms is the ‘point’, and it is the first aspect or emanation of God:
1. Kether: Crown. Then geometrically comes the line:
2. Chokmah: Wisdom. We then form the angle:
3. Binah: Understanding, and with it comes the triangle:
4. Chesed: Mercy.
5. Geburah: Power.
6. Tiphereth: Beauty.
7. Netzach: Victory.
8. Hod: Splendour.
9. Yesod: Foundation.
10. Malkuth: Kingdom. And so we return to unity by the reintroduction of ‘nought’.
Geometrically this is the double cube which when opened forms the Calvery Cross of twelve squares.
It is essential for these to be committed to memory and to recognise the various correspondences which are attached to each sephira (see 777 by Aleister Crowley). I have found that a good visual technique is to see each sephira as a room in a vast house (or Temple) and these are connected via corridors (the twenty-two paths). Each ‘room’ will have its distinctive colours, ornamentation etc relative to the principles as set out in the correspondences and each room can be added to as new information is discovered. As an example: we may express the sephira ‘Tiphereth’ as a room by saying that we enter a door marked six with the alchemical symbol for the Sun upon it. The King Scale of colour for Tiphereth is ‘clear pink rose’ and so the walls could be composed of this colour with complementary colours (gold amber, salmon and yellow) for the floor and ceiling, hangings and decorative ornamentation. Precious stones are Topaz and Yellow Diamond which may be constructed to form a heart-shaped window, which may be open to let in the air, the element of this sephira, and there may be sculptures of the Phoenix or the Lion, or Gods associated with Tiphereth. There may be Olibanum (Frankincense) perfume in the air. Upon an altar will be the magical weapons: the Lamen or Rosy Cross and all should be in balance and harmonious and beautiful to look upon and everything that the eyes fall upon, or are experienced through the nose or the ears should suggest Tiphereth etc.
Kether, Chokmah and Binah forms the Supernal Triad which represents God (Elohim).
Each sephira has a unique force or current peculiar to itself and the correspondences are harmonious with the nature of the current. The Tree is a representation of every conceivable idea and can be seen as a suitable system in which to represent all things of the ‘body’, all things of the ‘mind’ and all ‘phenomena’ in existence, every topic and subjects may be organised into the sephiroth. Like any system it is only as good as the person using it and continual practice by associations and correspondences will produce new discoveries and keys will unlock ‘secrets’ that will enhance ones’ personal interpretation of the Qabalah.
ALLAN BENNETT IN THE PRESS
ENGLISH BUDDHIST
___________________
A MACGREGOR WHO IS NOT A SCOT
__________________________________
A STRANGE INCIDENT
Bhikshu Ananda Metteyya, a Buddhist monk – the first to visit the occident – held a reception in his cabin on the steamship Ava at the Albert Docks last night.
He was greeted by old friends – he is an Englishman by birth, long residences and education – as “Allan” but he refused to recognise his baptismal name, which he has renounced for ever. This name in full is Allan Bennett MacGregor. He is not a Scotsman, however, but a Londoner. The last name was adopted in early childhood.
The Bhikshu – the monk’s official title – shivered in his cabin, warm and comfortable though it was. He was smoking asthma cigarettes to drive away the cold and damp of London’s weather. He was lightly clothed in pink robes – with a yellow lining – which were wrapped loosely around his gaunt frame, and his feet were unshod.
Though he is only thirty-five years old his hair is white and is closely shaven. His eyes are large, brilliant, and soulful. He speaks in low unimpassioned tones, but with a musical softness that charms the listener. His face is full of expression. One instinctively gains the impression that he is a man who has suffered long and intensely.
This is what he said to an Express representative who saw him in his cabin last night.
“I am the first Buddhist monk to come to England. I have come to teach this country the tenets of Buddhism.
“I cannot go out of doors because of my strange dress, and the impossibility otherwise of keeping inviolate the 272 rules of my order.
“My mission is not opposed to Christianity or any other religion – Buddhism is supplementary and leads to the highest of all.”
The 272 rules referred to mainly concern the “meditation”, which forms an essential part of the Buddhist system. Some of them are strange however. Here are five:-
Celibacy
Holding only eight possessions – three parts of the yellow robe, one begging bowl, one filter, an umbrella, a rosary, and a razor.
Never to eat after noon, and only a vegetarian diet.
Abstenation from dancing, music, and all ceremonies.
Refusal to look on any woman.
Bhikshu Ananda has had a remarkable career. He is a scientist of great attainments, and he has made several wonderful discoveries. He was at one time an assistant in the laboratory of Dr Dyer, the famous analytical chemist.
Seven years ago he went to China hoping to cure a severe attack of asthma. He there came into personal contact with several Buddhists and determined to become a monk.
There was one pathetic incident amid the quiet and distant greetings which the Bhikshu permitted. A lady who had known him in the old days approached – “Allan welcome”, she said.
The monk’s eyes fell on his rosary. He bowed, and turned quickly away. – Express.
[The Dundee Evening Telegraph and Post. Page 4. Thursday 23rd April 1908]
BUDDHIST MISSIONARY ARRIVES
Bkikkhu Ananda Metteyya, the first Buddhist monk to visit England, arrived at the Albert Dock from Rangoon on board the steamship Ava yesterday. He was met by some friends who accompanied him to Barnes, where he will stay while in this country. The object of his visit is to assist in spreading a knowledge of Buddhism in the British Isles.
Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya is by birth a Scotsman. At one time he was well known in scientific circles as Mr. Allan Bennett MacGregor. He is the only English Buddhist monk; but he has three Europeans studying under him in Rangoon. He will deliver his first lecture in London on May 8.
[The Yorkshire Telegraph and Star (evening).Page 3. Thursday 23rd April 1908]
BUDDHIST MONK
English soil was trodden yesterday for the first time by a Buddhist monk in full order of the sangha. The Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya formerly Mr Allan Bennett MacGregor, landed at ___ o’clock at Albert Dock, London, from the steamship Ava and was immediately driven in a ____ motor-car (horses being forbidden by the Buddhist code) to the house in Barnes where he hopes to lead for some years to come a life of contemplation and missionary effort.
[The Hull Daily Mail. Page 3. Thursday 23rd April 1908]
BUDDHIST MISSION TO ENGLAND
The chief and founder of the International Buddhist Society, the Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya, who has come from Rangoon to carry through a mission for the purpose of converting the people of England to Buddhism, landed on Wednesday at the Albert Dock from the steamship Ava. The priest, who was born in London, and was christened Allan Bennett Macgregor, was at one time assistant to Dr. Dyer, the famous analyst. Seven years ago – at the age of 28 – he went out to Ceylon, where he became interested in the teachings of Buddha, and decided to become a monk. He was admitted into the order at Akyab, and shortly afterwards founded the society at Rangoon.
The Bhikkhu, who was accompanied by three native ladies, Mrs. Hla Oung, Mrs. Bah Oung, and Mrs. Hbay, the wife of a Burmese judge, was met by Professor Mill and other members of the Buddhist Society of Great Britain and Ireland. In an interview with a Press representative, he explained that he had visited England to teach the tenets of Buddhism in this country.
“Buddhism”, he declared, “is not opposed to Christianity or to any religion; it rather supplements them.” He will deliver in London a series of lectures, which have already been arranged.
[The Somerset and West of England Advertiser. Page 3. Thursday 30th April 1908]
A BUDDHIST PRIEST IN BRITAIN
“A. W. E.” Sends an interesting note about the first Buddhist priest to set foot in this country, who has just arrived in the person of a Scotsman, Allan Bennett MacGregor. “His mission is not to learn, but to teach, and it will be interesting to observe how the Western mind will reconcile itself to the idea of the East teaching the West. Not only is he the first apostle to come West, but he is also one of the few Europeans who have become leaders in the faith of Buddha. Ananda Metteyya, and externally he presents a strange and picturesque appearance with his clean-shaven head and yellow robe. The only possessions with which he landed were:- A small filter, a rosary, a razor, a begging bowl, and an umbrella. There are 272 rules to which he must strictly adhere. One of them confines him to a single meal a day, and, of course, he is compelled to be a vegetarian. He must travel barefoot, and when lecturing to mixed audiences must keep his face concealed. Moreover, he must be drawn by no animal, and, strange as it must have appeared, his first conveyance in this country was a motor-car.
No Class Distinction in Burma
“Of his own immediate mission Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya has written at some length. For him Individualism is the great enemy. ‘Buddhism’, he writes, ‘with its central tenets of non-individualisation, is capable of offering to the West, to England, an escape from this curse of Individualism, which is the deep-rooted cause of the vast bulk of the suffering of mankind in Western lands to-day. That it can do this – not merely should – we have sufficient evidence if we compare together, say, the population of London with that of Burma, both numbering some six million. In Buddhist Burma we find none of the ever-widening gulfs between class and class so terribly manifest in Western lands.’ Finally, he contends that it is in Burma and not in Westminster that one learns to respect not wealth, but charity, and to revere not arrogance, but piety.”
[The People’s Journal: Aberdeen. Page 2 – Editor and Readers. Saturday 20th June 1908]
‘Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya, the Buddhist monk who has lectured before the Congress of Religions at Oxford, is soon to return to Burma. Notwithstanding the curious foreign name under which he now passes, he is a Scotsman, who at one time was known to the world as Allan Bennett Macgregor. He is well satisfied, he told an interviewer this afternoon, with the progress of his mission. Between twenty or thirty people in this country who were formerly agnostics have embraced his faith. Buddhism, he maintains, is not antagonistic to any religion, and he holds that it is the only means by which Christian ideals can be restored.
[The Aberdeen Daily Journal. Page 5. Tuesday 22nd September 1908]
BUDDHIST MONK A MACGREGOR
________________________________
MISSION TO SPREAD IDEAS
__________________________
Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya, the Buddhist monk who a few months ago arrived in London, has been conducting a month’s mission in the Metropolis, and left for Liverpool on Wednesday. After delivering a final lecture in that city he returns to Burma.
The yellow-clad bronzed monk is a Scotsman by birth, one Allan Bennett MacGregor, but he has lived several years in Burma.
The monk told a press representative on Monday of the result of his mission. Attired in a huge yellow robe, and puffing eternally at a cigarette, monk Ananda is a picturesque looking man.
“The results of this little experimental mission have been very satisfactory,” he said. “the outcome is that we are entirely convinced that given support adequate to the propagation of so great a mission, there are thousands of British people who would call themselves Buddhists.
“We are so satisfied with the reception we have received that if we can obtain sufficient financial support we shall return to Britain in two and a half years’ time, and celebrate the 2500th anniversary of the attainment of Buddhahood by building a monastery, and placing in permanent residence there five Buddhist monks.
“Our mission here was not as much for the object of gaining converts as of spreading the ideals and ideas that Buddhism inculcates,” continued the monk.
“Although we were not here with the object of gaining converts, between 20 and 30 people have entered the Buddhist Church. Nearly all of these converts have been agnostics.”
“I am quite convinced,” said the monk “that in two or three centuries as far as form in religion goes, Buddhism will be the only surviving religion in all the Western countries, the reason being that it does not depend on theories and opinion.”
[The Motherwell Times. Page 7. Friday 2nd October 1908]
BUDDHIST MONASTERY FOR LONDON
_____________________________________
ENGLISH SOCIETY’S SCHEME
____________________________
‘...Ananda Metteyya was born in London, of Scottish descent, his birth name being Allan Bennett MacGregor, and studied analytical chemistry under the well-known chemist, Dr. Bernard Dyer of Great Tower Street. He afterwards went to reside in Ceylon, where at 30 years of age he donned the Yellow Robe and became a professed Buddhist monk. Three or four of his fellow-countrymen have since followed in his footsteps and there are now several Buddhist monks of British birth in the order at Ceylon and Burma. Since that date no efforts have been spared to collect the necessary funds for the establishment of a sangha or monastery in the metropolis, and an impetus having been given recently to the movement, the wishes of the promoters of the scheme seen in likelihood of near fulfilment.’...’
[The Nottingham Evening Post. Page 6. Friday 30th August 1912]
LIBER TZADDI
vel HAMUS HERMETICUS
SUB FIGURA XC
1. In the name of the Lord of Initiation, Amen.
2. I fly and I alight as an hawk: of mother-of-emerald are my mighty-sweeping wings.
3. I swoop down upon the black earth; and it gladdens into green at my coming.
4. Children of Earth! rejoice! rejoice exceedingly; for your salvation is at hand.
5. The end of sorrow is come; I will ravish you away into mine unutterable joy.
6. I will kiss you, and bring you to the bridal: I will spread a feast before you in the house of happiness.
7. I am not come to rebuke you, or to enslave you.
8. I bid you not turn from your voluptuous ways, from your idleness, from your follies.
9. But I bring you joy to your pleasure, peace to your languor, wisdom to your folly.
10. All that ye do is right, if so be that ye enjoy it.
11. I am come against sorrow, against weariness, against them that seek to enslave you.
12. I pour you lustral wine, that giveth you delight both at the sunset and the dawn.
13. Come with me, and I will give you all that is desirable upon the earth.
14. Because I give you that of which Earth and its joys are but as shadows.
15. They flee away, but my joy abideth even unto the end.
16. I have hidden myself beneath a mask: I am a black and terrible God.
17. With courage conquering fear shall ye approach me: ye shall lay down your heads upon mine altar, expecting the sweep of the sword.
18. But the first kiss of love shall be radiant on your lips; and all my darkness and terror shall turn to light and joy.
19. Only those who fear shall fail. Those who have bent their backs to the yoke of slavery until they can no longer stand upright; them will I despise.
20. But you who have defied the law; you who have conquered by subtlety or force; you will I take unto me, even I will take you unto me.
21. I ask you to sacrifice nothing at mine altar; I am the God who giveth all.
22. Light, Life, Love; Force, Fantasy, Fire; these do I bring you: mine hands are full of these.
23. There is joy in the setting-out; there is joy in the journey; there is joy in the goal.
24. Only if ye are sorrowful, or weary, or angry, or discomforted; then ye may know that ye have lost the golden thread, the thread wherewith I guide you to the heart of the groves of Eleusis.
25. My disciples are proud and beautiful; they are strong and swift; they rule their way like mighty conquerors.
26. The weak, the timid, the imperfect, the cowardly, the poor, the tearful—these are mine enemies, and I am come to destroy them.
27. This also is compassion: an end to the sickness of earth. A rooting-out of the weeds: a watering of the flowers.
28. O my children, ye are more beautiful than the flowers: ye must not fade in your season.
29. I love you; I would sprinkle you with the divine dew of immortality.
30. This immortality is no vain hope beyond the grave: I offer you the certain consciousness of bliss.
31. I offer it at once, on earth; before an hour hath struck upon the bell, ye shall be with Me in the Abodes that are beyond Decay.
32. Also I give you power earthly and joy earthly; wealth, and health, and length of days. Adoration and love shall cling to your feet, and twine around your heart.
33. Only your mouths shall drink of a delicious wine—the wine of Iacchus; they shall reach ever to the heavenly kiss of the Beautiful God.
34. I reveal unto you a great mystery. Ye stand between the abyss of height and the abyss of depth.
35. In either awaits you a Companion; and that Companion is Yourself.
36. Ye can have no other Companion.
37. Many have arisen, being wise. They have said «Seek out the glittering Image in the place ever golden, and unite yourselves with It.»
38. Many have arisen, being foolish. They have said, «Stoop down unto the darkly splendid world, and be wedded to that Blind Creature of the Slime.»
39. I who am beyond Wisdom and Folly, arise and say unto you: achieve both weddings! Unite yourselves with both!
40. Beware, beware, I say, lest ye seek after the one and lose the other!
41. My adepts stand upright; their head above the heavens, their feet below the hells.
42. But since one is naturally attracted to the Angel, another to the Demon, let the first strengthen the lower link, the last attach more firmly to the higher.
43. Thus shall equilibrium become perfect. I will aid my disciples; as fast as they acquire this balanced power and joy so faster will I push them.
44. They shall in their turn speak from this Invisible Throne; their words shall illumine the worlds.
45. They shall be masters of majesty and might; they shall be beautiful and joyous; they shall be clothed with victory and splendour; they shall stand upon the firm foundation; the kingdom shall be theirs; yea, the kingdom shall be theirs.
In the name of the Lord of Initiation. Amen.
THE SUPREME RITUAL
The Feast of the Supreme Ritual is a celebration performed preferably at midday at the Thelemic ‘New Year’ [20th March] which honours Aleister and Rose Crowley’s invocation of 20th March 1904 in which the ‘Equinox of the Gods’ occurred. In looking at Crowley’s diary entries we can see the progress of events towards this momentous magical occasion!
Wednesday 16th March 1904:
Crowley invokes IAO using the ritual of the ‘Bornless One’ which is identical to the ‘Preliminary Invocation’ in the Goetia [see Magick, Appendix – Liber Samekh]. His intention was to show his wife Rose the sylphs. Rose failed to see the sylphs but entered an ‘inspired’ state and kept repeating ‘they’re waiting for you!’ The next day [Thursday 17th March 1904] Crowley writes in his ‘Confessions’:
‘I don't remember whether I repeated my attempt to show her the sylphs, but probably did. It is in my character to persist. She again got into the same state and repeated her remarks, adding, "It is all about the child." And "All Osiris." I think I must have been annoyed by her contumacy. Perhaps for this reason I invoked Thoth, the god of wisdom, presumably by the invocation printed in Liber Israfel (The Equinox, Vol. I, No. VII), which I knew by heart. I may also have been subconsciously wondering whether there was not something in her remarks, and wanted to be enlightened. The record says, "Thoth, invoked with great success, indwells us." But this strikes me as to some extent "written up" in a spirit of complacency, if not arrogance. I remember nothing of any result.’ [Confessions. Chapter 49]
Friday 18th March 1904:
Crowley’s diary for this day reads: ‘Told to INV. (invoke) Horus as the Sun by new way.’ It was Crowley’s wife Rose, whom Crowley named ‘Ouarda the seer’ (W for short) during this period [‘Ouarda’ is Arabic for ‘Rose’] who ‘told’ Crowley the manner in which to invoke Horus.
‘She instructed me how to invoke Horus. The instructions were, from my point of view, pure rubbish. I suggested amending them. She emphatically refused to allow a single detail to be altered. She promised success (whatever that might mean) on Saturday or Sunday. If I had any aspiration left at all, it was to attain Samadhi (which I had not yet ever done). She promised that I should do so. I agreed to carry out her instructions, avowedly in order to show her that nothing could happen if you broke all the rules.’ [Confessions. Chapter 49]
Saturday 19th March 1904:
Crowley states in the ‘Book of Results’ that the ‘ritual’ [the Supreme Ritual for invoking Horus] was ‘written out and the invocation done’ with ‘little success’:
‘I wrote out the ritual and did the invocation with little success. I was put off, not only by my scepticism and the absurdity of the ritual, but by having to do it in robes at an open window on a street at noon. She allowed me to make the second attempt at midnight.’ [Confessions. Chapter 49]
Sunday 20th March 1904:
Crowley performs the ‘midnight invocation’ [midnight was probably the culmination of the ritual which may have been begun at 10 p.m. as his diary states] and receives ‘Great Success!’
‘The invocation was a startling success. I was told that "The Equinox of the Gods had come"; that is, that a new epoch had begun. I was to formulate a link between the solar-spiritual force and mankind.’ [Confessions. Chapter 49]
The next day [Monday 21st March,] the Sun entered Aries:
‘March 21st-22nd-23rd. There seems to have been a reaction after the success of the twentieth. The phenomena faded out. I tried to clear up my position by the old methods and did a long Tarot divination [Wednesday 23rd March] which proved perfectly futile.
March 23rd to April 7th. I made inquiries about the stele and had the inscriptions translated into French by the assistant curator at Boulak. I made poetic paraphrases of them. Ouarda now told me to enter the room, where all this work had been done, exactly at noon on April 8th, 9th and 10th, and write down what I heard, rising exactly at one o'clock.’ [Confessions. Chapter 49]
The Supreme Ritual which Crowley used is shown below:
THE INVOCATION OF HORUS
ACCORDING TO THE DIVINE VISION OF W., THE SEER
To be performed before a window open to the E. or N. without incense. The room to be filled with jewels, but only diamonds to be worn. A sword, unconsecrated, 44 pearl beads to be told. Stand. Bright daylight at 12:30 noon. Lock doors. White robes. Bare feet. Be very loud. Saturday. Use the sign of Apophis and Typhon.
CONFESSION
Unprepared and uninvoking Thee, I, ____________ am here in Thy Presence – for Thou art Everywhere, O Lord Horus! – to confess humbly before Thee my neglect and scorn of Thee. How shall I humble myself enough before Thee? Thou art the mighty and unconquered Lord of the Universe: I am a spark of Thine unutterable Radiance.
How should I approach Thee? But Thou art Everywhere. But Thou hast graciously deigned to call me unto Thee, to this Exorcism of Art, that I may be Thy Servant, Thine Adept, O Bright One, O Sun of Glory! Thou hast called me – should I not then hasten to Thy Presence?
With unwashen hands therefore I come unto Thee, and I lament my wandering from Thee – but Thou knowest!
Yea, I have done evil!
If one blasphemed Thee, why should I therefore forsake Thee? But Thou art the Avenger; all is with Thee.
I bow my neck before Thee; and as once Thy sword was upon it so am I in Thy hands. Strike if Thou wilt: spare if Thou wilt: but accept me as I am.
My trust is in Thee: shall I be confounded? This Ritual of Art; this Forty and Fourfold Invocation; this Sacrifice of Blood – these I do not comprehend.
It is enough if I obey Thy decree; did Thy fiat go forth for my eternal misery, were it not my joy to execute Thy sentence on myself?
For why? For that All is in Thee and of Thee; it is enough if I burn up in the intolerable glory of Thy Presence.
Enough! I turn toward Thy Promise.
Doubtful are the Words: Dark are the Ways: but in Thy Words and Ways is Light. Thus then now as ever, I enter the Path of Darkness, if haply so I may attain the Light.
Hail!
I
Strike, strike the master chord!
Draw, draw the Flaming Sword!
Crowned Child and Conquering Lord,
Horus, Avenger!
O Thou of the Head of the Hawk! Thee, Thee, I invoke!
(At every "Thee I invoke," throughout the whole of the ritual, give the sign of Apophis.)
Thou only-begotten-child of Osiris Thy Father, and Isis Thy Mother. He that was slain; She that bore Thee in Her womb flying from the Terror of the Water. Thee, Thee I invoke!
O Thou whose Apron is of flashing white, whiter than the Forehead of the Morning! Thee, Thee I invoke!
O Thou who hast formulated Thy Father and made fertile Thy Mother! Thee, Thee I invoke!
O Thou whose garment is of the golden glory with the azure bars of sky! Thee, Thee I invoke!
Thou, who didst avenge the Horror of Death; Thou the slayer of Typhon! Thou who didst lift Thine arms, and the Dragons of Death were as dust; Thou who didst raise Thine Head and the Crocodile of Nile was abased before Thee! Thee, Thee I invoke!
O Thou whose Nemyss hideth the Universe with night, the impermeable Blue! Thee, Thee I invoke! Thou who travellest in the Boat of Ra, abiding at the Helm of the Aftet boat and of the Sektet boat! Thee, Thee I invoke! Thou who bearest the Wand of Double Power! Thee, Thee I invoke!
Thou about whose presence is shed the darkness of Blue Light, the unfathomable glory of the outmost Ether, the untravelled, the unthinkable immensity of Space. Thou who concentrest all the Thirty Ethers in one darkling sphere of Fire! Thee, Thee I invoke!
O Thou who bearest the Rose and Cross of Life and Light! Thee, Thee I invoke!
The Voice of the Five.
The Voice of the Six.
Eleven are the Voices.
Abrahadabra!
II
Strike, strike the master chord!
Draw, draw the Flaming Sword!
Crowned Child and Conquering Lord,
Horus, Avenger!
By Thy name of Ra, I invoke Thee, Hawk of the Sun, the glorious one!
By Thy name Harmachis, youth of the Brilliant Morning, I invoke Thee!
By Thy name Mau, I invoke Thee, Lion of the Midday Sun!
By Thy name Tum, Hawk of the Even, crimson splendour of the sunset, I invoke Thee!
By Thy name of Khep-Ra I invoke Thee, O Beetle of the hidden Mastery of Midnight!
By Thy Heru-pa-Kraat, Lord of Silence, Beautiful Child that standest on the Dragons of the Deep, I invoke Thee!
By Thy name Apollo, I invoke Thee, O man of Strength and Splendour, O Poet, O Father!
By Thy name of Phoebus, that drivest Thy Chariot through the Heavens of Zeus, I invoke Thee.
By Thy name of Odin, I invoke Thee, O warrior of the North, O Renown of the Sagas.
By Thy name Jeheshua, O Child of the Flaming Star, I invoke Thee!
By Thine own, thy secret name Hoori, Thee I invoke!
The Names are Five.
The Names are Six.
Eleven are the Names!
Abrahadabra!
Behold! I stand in the Midst. Mine is the symbol of Osiris; to Thee are mine eyes ever turned. Unto the splendour of Geburah, the Magnificence of Chesed, the mystery of Daath, thither I lift up mine eyes. This have I sought, and I have sought the Unity: hear Thou me!
III
Mine is the Head of the Man, and my insight is keen as the Hawk's. By my head I invoke Thee!
I am the only-begotten child of my Father and Mother. By my body I invoke Thee!
About me shine the Diamonds of Radiance white and pure. By their brightness I invoke Thee!
Mine is the Red Triangle Reversed. the Sign given of none, save it be of Thee, O Lord! By the Lamen I invoke Thee!
Mine is the garment of white sewn with gold, the flashing abbai that I wear. By my robe I invoke Thee! Mine is the sign of Apophis and Typhon! By the sign I invoke Thee!
Mine is the turban of white and gold, and mine the blue vigour of the intimate air! By my crown I invoke Thee!
My fingers travel on the Beads of Pearl; so run I after Thee in Thy car of glory. By my fingers I invoke Thee!
I bear the Wand of Double Power in the Voice of the Master - Abrahadabra! By the word I invoke Thee!
Mine are the dark-blue waves of music in the song that I made of old to invoke Thee-
Strike, strike the master chord!
Draw, draw the Flaming Sword!
Crowned Child and Conquering Lord,
Horus, Avenger!
By the song I invoke Thee!
In my hand is thy Sword of Revenge; let it strike at Thy Bidding!
By the Sword I invoke Thee!
The Voice of the Five.
The Voice of the Six.
Eleven are the Voices.
Abrahadabra!
IV
Mine is the Head of the Hawk! Abrahadabra!
(At every "Abrahadabra" throughout this section, give the sign of Apophis)
I am the only-begotten-child of Osiris My Father, and Isis My Mother. He that was slain; She that bore Me in Her womb flying from the Terror of the Water. Abrahadabra!
My Apron is of flashing white, whiter than the Forehead of the Morning! Abrahadabra!
I have formulated My Father and made fertile My Mother! Abrahadabra!
Mine is the garment of the golden glory with the azure bars of sky! Abrahadabra!
I did avenge the Horror of Death, I am the slayer of Typhon! I did lift Mine arms, and the Dragons of Death were as dust; I did raise Mine Head, and the Crocodile of Nile was abased before Me! Abrahadabra!
My Nemyss hides the Universe with night, the impermeable Blue! Abrahadabra!
I travel in the Boat of Ra, abiding at the Helm of the Aftet boat and of the Sektet boat! Abrahadabra!
About my presence is shed the darkness Blue Light, the unfathomable glory of the outmost Ether, the untravelled, the unthinkable immensity of Space. I concentre all the Thirty Ethers in one darkling sphere of Fire! Abrahadabra!
(Remaining in the Sign, the invocation concludes:)
Therefore I say unto thee: Come Thou forth and dwell in me; so that every spirit, whether of the Firmament, or of the Ether, or of the Earth or under the Earth; on dry land or in the Water, of Whirling air or of Rushing Fire; and every spell and scourge of God the Vast One may be THOU! Abrahadabra!
The Adoration - Impromptu.
TO ALLAN BENNETT MACGREGOR
O man of Sorrows: brother unto Grief!
O pale with suffering, and dumb hours of pain!
O worn with thought! thy purpose springs again
The Soul of Resurrection: thou art chief
And lord of all thy mind: O patient thief
Of God’s own fire! What mysteries find fane
In the white shrine of thy white spirit’s reign,
Thou man of Sorrows: O, beyond belief!
Let perfect Peace be with thee: let thy days
Prosper in spite of thine unselfish soul;
And as thou lovest, so let Love increase
Upon thee and about thee: till thy ways
Gleam with the splendour of that secret goal
Whose long war grows the great abiding peace.
[The Temple of the Holy Ghost. 1901, from The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley, volume I]
LIBER CHETH
vel VALLUM ABIEGNI
SUB FIGURA CLVI
1. This is the secret of the Holy Graal, that is the sacred vessel of our Lady the Scarlet Woman, Babalon the Mother of Abominations, the bride of Chaos, that rideth upon our Lord the Beast.
2. Thou shalt drain out thy blood that is thy life into the golden cup of her fornication.
3. Thou shalt mingle thy life with the universal life. Thou shalt keep not back one drop.
4. Then shall thy brain be dumb, and thy heart beat no more, and all thy life shall go from thee; and thou shalt be cast out upon the midden, and the birds of the air shall feast upon thy flesh, and thy bones shall whiten in the sun.
5. Then shall the winds gather themselves together, and bear thee up as it were a little heap of dust in a sheet that hath four corners, and they shall give it unto the guardians of the abyss.
6. And because there is no life therein, the guardians of the abyss shall bid the angels of the winds pass by. And the angels shall lay thy dust in the City of the Pyramids, and the name thereof shall be no more.
7. Now therefore that thou mayest achieve this ritual of the Holy Graal, do thou divest thyself of all thy goods.
8. Thou hast wealth; give it unto them that have need thereof, yet no desire toward it.
9. Thou hast health; slay thyself in the fervour of thine abandonment unto Our Lady. Let thy flesh hang loose upon thy bones, and thine eyes glare with thy quenchless lust unto the Infinite, with thy passion for the Unknown, for Her that is beyond Knowledge the accursèd one.
10. Thou hast love; tear thy mother from thine heart, and spit in the face of thy father. Let thy foot trample the belly of thy wife, and let the babe at her breast be the prey of dogs and vultures.
11. For if thou dost not this with thy will, then shall We do this despite thy will. So that thou attain to the Sacrament of the Graal in the Chapel of Abominations.
12. And behold! if by stealth thou keep unto thyself one thought of thine, then shalt thou be cast out into the abyss for ever; and thou shalt be the lonely one, the eater of dung, the afflicted in the Day of Be-with-Us.
13. Yea! verily this is the Truth, this is the Truth, this is the Truth. Unto thee shall be granted joy and health and wealth and wisdom when thou art no longer thou.
14. Then shall every gain be a new sacrament, and it shall not defile thee; thou shalt revel with the wanton in the market-place, and the virgins shall fling roses upon thee, and the merchants bend their knees and bring thee gold and spices. Also young boys shall pour wonderful wines for thee, and the singers and the dancers shall sing and dance for thee.
15. Yet shalt thou not be therein, for thou shalt be forgotten, dust lost in dust.
16. Nor shall the æon itself avail thee in this; for from the dust shall a white ash be prepared by Hermes the Invisible.
17. And this is the wrath of God, that these things should be thus.
18. And this is the grace of God, that these things should be thus.
19. Wherefore I charge you that ye come unto me in the Beginning; for if ye take but one step in this Path, ye must arrive inevitably at the end thereof.
20. This Path is beyond Life and Death; it is also beyond Love; but that ye know not, for ye know not Love.
21. And the end thereof is known not even unto Our Lady or to the Beast whereon She rideth; nor unto the Virgin her daughter nor unto Chaos her lawful Lord; but unto the Crowned Child is it known? It is not known if it be known.
22. Therefore unto Hadit and unto Nuit be the glory in the End and the Beginning; yea, in the End and the Beginning.
AN EXAMPLE OF A RITUAL COMPOSED BY GREATLY HONOURED FRATER IEHI AOUR
by Barry Van-Asten
In May 1896 four members of the Second Order of the Golden Dawn performed a ritual written by Frater Iehi Aour [Allan Bennet] which was an invocation to cause an entity to give instruction to the magicians on the secrets of magical arts and occult wisdom. The ritual can be found in The Equinox, volume I, number III [1910. pp. 170-90] in ‘The Temple of Solomon the King’ under the title: ‘The Ritual for the Evocation unto visible appearance of the Great Spirit Taphthartharath’. The ritual was probably performed at the Second Order’s Temple at 62 Oakley Square on Wednesday 13th May 1896 and the four magicians were: Soror S.S.D.D. the Mighty Magus of Art [Florence Farr], Frater I. A. the Assistant Magus of Art [Allan Bennett], Frater Ae. A. Magus of the Fires [Charles Rosher] and Frater D.P.A.L. Magus of the Waters [Frederick L Gardner]. Their ages during the ceremony were respectively: S.S.D.D. 35, I.A. 23, Ae. A 37/38 , D.P.A.L. 39. Allan Bennett and Frederick Gardener were friends in the Golden Dawn and were also in the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society [Ananda Lodge] together around 1894-5.
The focal point of the ceremony in the centre of the circle is a ‘small brazen cauldron, heated over a lamp burning with spirit in which a snake has been preserved.’ The cauldron contains the ‘Hell-broth’ which Bennett, the Assistant Magus of Art was in charge of during the ritual. The purpose of the hell-broth was to provide the spirit [Taphthartharath, a spirit of Mercury] a material basis to give it a visible appearance. In a letter written by Bennett to Gardner some time before the ritual in May he writes: ‘There are certain more ingredients of the Hell-broth necessary to give our brother [followed by a word in Hebrew letters] physical pabulum whereon to act, which I am unable to get myself: the chief is a snake pickled in spirit. I believe you have some snakes in spirit; if you can spare one for this work it will more than double our chances of getting him materialised.
Also I left out my list: (I) Gum Ammoniacum two ouzs, and (II) Coriander seed two ouzs. Both of these are cheap. About ½ lb. of Spermaceti will be reqd. as I find I shall have to make a great Magick Candle to give light to read by: and this has to be compounded in certain ways with the fat of a snake. Also we will need about a pint of olive oil.
If you could bring that snake and some of the other ingredients to Headquarters Friday afternoon when the Council is to be held, I will be there to receive them. You know that you must not talk to anyone save us three of the work we are about to do. It would greatly weaken us.’ [The Magicians of the Golden Dawn. ‘Magical Operations’. Ellic Howe. London. Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1972. Quotation 1985 ed. p 106]
A few days later Bennett writes again to Gardner: ‘I have got all the ingredients safely. I write to tell you that the operation will not take place tomorrow; and probably not for two or three weeks.
S.S.D.D. [Florence Farr] [Charles] Rosher and myself being all suddenly afflicted with grim and horrible diseases.
We will probably meet tomorrow at the College when we will arrange when we are to do these things.’ [ibid. p. 106]
THE RITUAL
FOR THE
EVOCATION UNTO VISIBLE
APPEARANCE
OF
THE GREAT SPIRIT
TAPHTHARTHARATH
IN THE NAME OF GOD LET THERE BE LIGHT
UNTO THE VOID A RESTRICTION.
"Soror S.S.D.D. altered Frater I.A.'s ritual, making the operation to" "form a link between Thoth and the Magus. This is absurd; the correct way" "is as here given, in which the link is formed between the Spirit and the" "Magus."
CONSIDERATIONS
To be performed on the day and in the hour of Mercury: the Evocation itself commencing in the magical hour of Tafrac, under the dominion of the Great Angel of Mercury, Lamed, Aleph, Peh, Resh. On Wednesday, May 13, 1896, this hour Tafrac occurs between 8h.32' P.M. and 9h.16', when Mercury is in 17 degrees Gemini on the cusp of seventh house slightly to South of due West. Moon going to Mars with Mercury 14 degrees Gemini Mercury to Neptune, Mercury 150 degrees Saturn. (1)
OF THE FORM OF THE CIRCLE TO BE EMPLOYED
This is a duodecagram (twelve sided regular figure). It is oriented with a vertex to top and all diagonal chords are drawn, except those which would cross the exact centre of the figure. Each vertex surmounts a small ring-bordered disk, such that the portion under the doudecagram is not visible. The small ring at top has "S", that at bottom "N", that at right "W" and that at left "E" ___ these letters are oriented so that they would be read correctly from the perspective of a person standing at the centre of the figure and looking to each vertex in turn. There are several letters marking positions within the figure, all oriented with top parallel to the E-SE line and bottom toward the W-NW line. In a rectangle depending from the centre of the E-SE chord, the letter "C"; in a rectangle depending from the centre of the N-SW chord, the letter "D"; in two circles at the intersections of the S-NE chord with the W-SE and E-NW chords, "E"; symmetrically to either side of the N-SE and E-SW chord intersection, parallel to the S-NE chord, two circles with "G"; in the centre of the figure, a circumscribed equilateral triangle, base parallel to the N-SW chord, with "F" inside. There is a tangent, large ringed circle outside at the NE vertex, point of tangency obscured by the smaller ringed circle of that vertex. There is an equilateral triangle circumscribed within, base parallel to the tangent afore mentioned. There is an "A" within the apex of this triangle, top to apex direction. Below the "A", within the triangle, is the sigil from page 170 [of The Equinox volume I, number III], oriented as the "A". The Magical figures of Mercury are to be drawn in yellow-orange chalk upon the Ground as shown. At the quarter where the Spirit is to appear is drawn a triangle within a circle: at its points are to be placed three vessels burning on charcoal the Incense of Mercury. About the great circle are disposed lamps burning olive oil impregnated with snake-fat. C is the chair of the chief Operator. D is the altar, E E are the pillars, and G G handy and convenient tables whereon are set writing materials, the ingredients for the Hell-broth, charcoal, incense, &c., all as may be needed for this work. At F is placed a small brazen cauldron, heated over a lamp burning with spirit in which a snake has been preserved. (2)
OPERATIONIS PERSONAE
V.H. Sor: S.S.D.D. (3) addressed Mighty Magus of Art. V.H. Fra: I.A. (4) Assistant Magus of Art. V.H. Fra: AE.A. (5) Magus of the Fires. V.H. Fra: D.P.A.L. (6) Magus of the Waters. The duties of the Magus of Art will be to perform the actual processes of Invocation: to rule the Assistants and command them all. The Assistant Magus of Art shall act as Kerux in the circumambulations; he shall preside over the Brewing of the Hell-broth in the midst of the Circle: he shall repeat such Invocations as may be necessary at the command of the Magus of Art: and he shall prepare beforehand the place of the working. The Magus of Fires shall preside over all magical lights, fires, candles, incense, &c: he shall perform the invoking and consecrating rituals at the command of the Magus, and he shall consecrate the temple by Fire, and shall consecrate all Fire used in due form. The Magus of Waters shall preside over all the fluids used in the operation; over the Water and the Wine, the Oil and the Milk: he shall perform all banishing rituals at the opening of the ceremony: he shall purify the Temple by Water: he shall consecrate all watery things used in due form.
OF THE ROBES AND INSIGNIA
The Mighty Magus of Art shall wear a white robe, yellow sash, red overmantle, indigo nemys, upon her breast shall she bear a great Tablet whereon is the magic seal of Mercury; and over this the lamen bearing the signature of Taphthartharath, on its obverse the Lamen of a Hierophant. She shall wear also a dagger in her sash, and a red rose on her heart: and she shall carry in her left hand the Ankh of Thoth, and in her right the Ibis Wand. The Assistant Magus of Art shall wear a white robe, with a girdle of snake-skin; a black head-dress and a Lamen of the Spirit, on its obverse the Lamen of the Hiereus. And he shall bear in his right hand a sword; and in his left hand the Magical Candle; and a black chain about his neck. The Magus of the Fires shall wear a white robe and yellow sash; and the rose upon his breast; in his right hand is a sword and in his left a red lamp. The Magus of the Waters shall wear a white robe and yellow sash and rose cross: he shall bear in his right hand a sword and in his left a cup of water.
OPENING
The Chamber of Art shall be duly prepared by the Assistant Magus of Art as aforementioned. He shall draw upon the ground the lineal figures; and shall trace over them with a magic sword: he shall place the furniture of the Temple in order. The Members shall be assembled and robed. The Chief Magus rises, holding the Ibis wand by its black end, and proclaims:
"HEKAS, HEKAS ESTE BEBELOI!" (7)
Fratres of the Order of the Rosy Cross, we are this day assembled together for the purpose of evoking unto visible appearance the spirit Taphthartharath. And before we can proceed further in an operation of so great danger, it is necessary that we should invoke that divine Aid and Assistance, without which would our work indeed be futile and of no avail. Wherefore being met thus together let us all kneel down and pray: [All kneel at the four points.] From Thy Hands O Lord cometh all good! From Thy Hands flow down all Grace and Blessing: the Characters of Nature with Thy Fingers hast thou traced, but none can read them unless he hath been taught in thy school. Therefore, even as servants look unto the hands of their Masters, and handmaidens unto the hands of their Mistresses, even so our eyes look unto thee! For Thou alone art our help, O Lord our God. Who should not extol Thee, who should not praise Thee, O Lord of the Universe! All is from Thee, all belongeth unto Thee! Either Thy Love or Thine Anger, all must again re-enter; for nothing canst Thou lose; all must tend unto Thy Honour and Majesty. Thou art Lord alone, and there is none beside Thee! Thou dost what thou wilt with Thy Mighty Arm, and none can escape from Thee! Thou alone helpest in their necessity the humble, the meek-hearted and the poor, who submit themselves unto Thee; and whosoever humbleth himself in dust and ashes before Thee, to such an one art Thou propitious! Who would not praise Thee then, Lord of the Universe! Who would not extol Thee! Unto whom there is no like, whose dwelling is in Heaven, and in every virtuous and God-fearing heart. O God the Vast One ___ Thou are in all things. O Nature, Thou Self from Nothing: for what else shall I call Thee! In myself I am nothing, in Thee I am all self, and live in Thy Selfhood from Nothing! Live Thou in me, and bring me unto that Self which is in Thee! Amen! [All rise ___ a pause.]
"Magus of Art:" Fratres of the Order of the Rosy Cross, let us purify and consecrate this place as the Hall of Dual Truth. Magus of the Waters, I command Thee to perform the lesser banishing ritual of the Pentagram, (8) to consecrate the Water of purification, the wine, the oil, and the milk; and afterwards to purify the place of working with the Consecrated Water!
"Magus of Waters:" Mighty Magus of Art! All thy commands shall be fulfilled, and thy desires accomplished. [He passes to the North, where are collected in open vessels, the water, the wine, the oil, and the milk; and makes with his sword over them the banishing pentagram of water, saying:] I exorcise ye impure, unclean and evil spirits that dwell in these creatures of water, oil, wine, and milk, in the name of EL strong and mighty, and in the name of Gabriel, great Angel of Water, I command ye to depart and no longer to pollute with your presence the Hall of Twofold Truth! [Drawing over them the equilibrating Pentagram of Passives, and the invoking Pentagram of water, he says:] In the name of HCOMA, (9) and by the names Empeh Arsel Gaiol, (10) I consecrate ye to the service of the Magic of Light! He places the Wine upon the Altar, the Water he leaves at the North, the oil towards the South, and the brazen vessel of milk on the tripod in the midst of the circle.
The Magus of Art silently recites to herself the exhortation of the Lords of the Key Tablet of Union, (11) afterwards saying silently: I invoke ye, Lords of the Key Tablet of Union, to infuse into these elements of Water and Fire your mystic powers, and to cast into the midst of these opposing elements the holy powers of the great letter Shin: to gleam and shine in the midst of the Balance, even in the Cauldron of Art wherein alike is fire and moisture. [After the consecration of the Water, the Magus of Waters takes up the cup of water, and scatters water all round the edge of the circle, saying:] So first the priest who governeth the works of Fire, must sprinkle with the lustral waters of the loud-resounding sea. [He then passes to the centre of the circle and scatters the water in the four quarters, saying:] I purify with water. [He resumes his place in the North.]
"Magus of Art:" Magus of the Fires, I command you to consecrate this place by the banishing ritual of the Hexagram, (12) to consecrate the Magic fire and lights; to illumine the lamps and place them about the circle in orderly disposition; and afterwards to consecrate this place with the holy fire.
"Magus of the Fires:" Mighty Magus of Art! all thy commands shall be obeyed and all thy desires shall be accomplished. [He collects together at the South the incense, oil, charcoal, and magic candle, and performs the lesser banishing ritual of the Hexagram at the four quarters; then, extinguishing all lights save one, he performs over these the banishing ritual of the Pentagram of fire, saying:] I exorcise ye, evil and opposing spirits dwelling in this creature of Fire, by the holy and tremendous name of God the Vast One, Elohim: and in the name of Michael, great Archangel of Fire, that ye depart hence, no longer polluting with your presence the Hall of Twofold Truth. [He lights from that one flame the Magical candle, and drawing over it the invoking pentagram of spirit active, he cries:] BITOM! (13) [And then, drawing the invoking pentagram of Fire, he says:] I, in the names of BITOM and by the names Oip Teaa Pedoce, (14) I consecrate thee, O creature of fire, to the service of the works of the Magic of Light! [He lights from the magical candle the eight lamps, and the charcoal for the incense-burners, after which he casts incense on the coals in the censer and passes round the circle censing, saying:] And, when after all the phantasms are vanished, thou shalt see that holy and Formless Fire, that Fire which darts and flashes through the hidden depths of the Universe, hear thou the Voice of the Fire. [He passes to the centre of the circle and censes towards the four quarters, saying:] I consecrate with fire. [He resumes his place in the South.]
[Chief Magus takes fan, and fanning air says:] I exorcise thee, creature of Air, by these Names, that all evil and impure spirits now immediately depart. [Circumambulates, saying:] Such a fire existeth extending through the rushing of the air, or even a fire formless whence cometh the image of a voice, or even a flashing light abounding, revolving, whirling forth, crying aloud. [Makes banishing air pentagram:] Creature of Air, in the names EXARP (15) Oro Ibah Aozpi, (16) I consecrate thee to the works of the Magic of Light! [Making invoking Pentagrams in air. All face West.]
[Assistant Magus then casts salt to all four quarters, all over the circle, and passes to West, faces East, and describes with his chain the Banishing pentagram of Earth, saying:] I exorcise thee, creature of Earth, by and in the Divine Names Adonai Ha Aretz, Adonai Melekh Namen, and in the name of Aurial, Great Archangel of Earth, that every evil and impure spirit now depart hence immediately. [Circumambulates, saying:] Stoop not down unto the darkly splendid world, wherein lieth continually a faithless depth, and Hades wrapt in gloom, delighting in unintelligible images, precipitous, winding, a black ever-rolling abyss, ever espousing a body unluminous, formless and void. [Making invoking pentagram.] Creature of Earth, in the names of NANTA Emor Dial Hectega, (17) I consecrate thee to the service of the Magic of Light!
"Chief Magus:" We invoke ye, great lords of the Watch-towers of the Universe! (18) guard ye our Magic Circle, and let no evil or impure spirit enter therein: strengthen and inspire us in this our operation of the Magic of Light. Let the Mystic Circumambulation take place in the Path of Light. [Assistant Magus of Art goes first, holding in his left the Magic Candle, and in his right the Sword of Art, with which latter he traces in the air the outer limits of the Magic Circle. All circumambulate thrice. He then, standing at East and facing East, says]: Holy art Thou, Lord of the Universe! Holy art Thou, whom Nature hath not formed! Holy art thou, the Vast and the Mighty One! Lord of the Light and of the Darkness!
"Chief Magus of Art:" Magus of the Fires, I command you to perform at the four quarters of the Universe the invocation of the forces of Mercury by Solomon's Seal.
"Magus of Fire:" Mighty Magus of Art, all thy commands shall be obeyed, and all thy desires shall be accomplished! [He does it. (19)] [The Magus now advances to the centre of the circle, by the Magical Cauldron, wherein is the milk becoming heated, turns himself towards the Fire of the spirit, and recites:]
"THE INVOCATION TO THE HIGHER."
Majesty of the Godhead, Wisdom-crowned Thoth, Lord of the Gates of the Universe: Thee! Thee we invoke!
Thou that manifesteth in Thy symbolic Form as an Ibis-headed one: Thee, Thee we invoke!
Thou, who holdest in Thy hand the magic wand of Double Power: Thee, Thee we invoke!
Thou who bearest in thy left hand the Rose and Cross of Light and Life: Thee, Thee we invoke!
Thou whose head is of green, whose Nemys is of night sky- blue; whose skin of flaming orange, as though it burned in a furnace: Thee, Thee we invoke!
Behold, I am Yesterday, To-day, and the brother of the Morrow! For I am born again and again. Mine is the unseen force which created the Gods, and giveth life unto the dwellers in the watch-towers of the Universe. I am the charioteer in the East, Lord of the Past and the Future, He who seeth by the Light that is within Him. I am the Lord of Resurrection, who cometh forth from the dusk, and whose birth is from the House of Death. O ye two divine hawks upon your pinnacles, who are keeping Watch over the Universe! Ye who accompany the bier unto its resting-place, and who pilot the Ship of Ra, advancing onwards unto the heights of Heaven! Lord of the Shrine which standeth in the centre of the Earth! Behold He is in me and I in Him! Mine is the radiance in which Ptah floateth over his firmament. I travel upon high. I tread upon the firmament of Nu. I raise a flame with the flashing lightning of mine eye, ever rushing forward in the splendour of the daily glorified Ra, giving life to every creature that treadeth upon the Earth. If I say come up upon the mountains, The Celestial waters shall flow at my word; For I am Ra incarnate, Khephra created in the flesh! I am the living image of my Father Tmu, Lord of the City of the Sun! The God who commands in my mouth: The God of Wisdom is in my heart: My tongue is the sanctuary of Truth: And a God sitteth upon my lips! My Word is accomplished each day, and the desire of my heart realises itself like that of Ptah when he creates his works. Since I am Eternal everything acts according to my designs, and everything obeys my words. Therefore do Thou come forth unto Me from thine abode in the Silence, Unutterable Wisdom, All-light, All-power. Thoth, Hermes, Mercury, Odin, by whatever name I call Thee, Thou art still Un-named and nameless for Eternity! Come thou forth, I say, and aid and guard me in this Work of Art. Thou, Star of the East that didst conduct the Magi. Thou art the same, all present in Heaven and in Hell. Thou that vibratest betwixt the Light and the Darkness Rising, descending, changing for ever, yet for ever the same! The Sun is Thy Father! Thy Mother the Moon! The Wind hath borne Thee in its bosom: And Earth hath ever nourished the changeless Godhead of Thy Youth. Come Thou forth I say, come Thou forth, And make all spirits subject unto me! So that every spirit of the firmament, And of the Ether of the Earth, And under the Earth, On dry land, And in the Water, Of whirling Air, And of rushing Fire, And every spell and scourge of God, may be obedient unto Me! [She binds a black cord thrice round the sigil of the Spirit and veils it in black silk, saying:] Hear me, ye Lords of Truth in the Hall of Themis, hear ye my words, for I am made as ye! I now purpose with the divine aid, to call forth this day and hour the Spirit of Mercury, Taphthartharath, whose magical sigil I now bind with this triple cord of Bondage, and shroud in the black concealing darkness and in death! Even as I knot about this sigil the triple cord of Bondage, so let the Magic power of my will and words penetrate unto him, and bind him that he cannot move; but is presently forced by the Mastery and the Majesty of the rites of power to manifest here before us without this Circle of Art, in the magical triangle which I have provided for his apparition. And even as I shroud from the Light of Day this signature of that Spirit Taphthartharath, so do I render him in his place blind, deaf and dumb. That he may in no wise move his place or call for aid upon his Gods; or hear another voice save mine or my companions', or see another path before him than the one unto this place. [Sigil is placed outside the circle by the assistant Magus of Art.] And the reason of this my working is, that I seek to obtain from that spirit Taphthartharath the knowledge of the realm of Kokab, and to this end I implore the divine assistance in the names of Elohim Tzebaoth, Thoth, Metatron, Raphael, Michael, Beni Elohim, Tiriel. [Chief resumes her seat. The three others pass to the West and point their swords in menace at the veiled and corded sigil. The Assistant Magus then lifts the sigil on to the edge of the circle, and says:] Who gives permission to admit to the Hall of Dual Truth this creature of sigils?
"Magus of Art:" I, S.S.D.D., Soror of the Order of the Golden Dawn, Theorica Adepta Minora of the Order of the Rose of Ruby and the Cross of Gold! "I.A.:" Creature of Sigils, impure and unconsecrate! thou canst not enter our Magic Circle! "D.P.A.L.:" Creature of Sigils, I purify thee with Water. "AE.A.:" Creature of Sigils, I consecrate thee by Fire. [Magus of Art in a loud voice cries "seven times" the name of the Spirit, vibrating strongly, and then says:] Assistant Magus of Art, I command thee to place the sigil at the foot of the Altar. "I.A.:" Mighty Magus of Art, all your commands shall be obeyed and all your desires shall be fulfilled. [He does so. The Magus of Art, standing on the throne of the East, then proclaims:]
THE INVOCATION
O Thou mighty and powerful spirit Taphthartharath, I bind and conjure Thee very potently, that Thou do appear in visible form before us in the magical triangle without this Circle of Art. I demand that Thou shalt speedily come hither from Thy dark abodes and retreats, in the sphere of Kokab, and that Thou do presently appear before us in pleasing form, not seeking to terrify us by vain apparitions, for we are armed with words of double power, and therefore without fear! and I moreover demand, binding and conjuring Thee by the Mighty Name of Elohim Tzebaoth, that Thou teach us how we may acquire the power to know all things that appertain unto the knowledge of Thoth who ruleth the occult wisdom and power. And I am about to invocate Thee in the Magical hour of TAFRAC, on this day, for that in this day and hour the great angel of Kokab, Raphael, reigneth ___ beneath whose dominion art Thou ___ and I swear to Thee, here in the hall of the twofold manifestation of Truth, that, as liveth and ruleth for evermore the Lord of the Universe; that even as I and my companions are of the Order of the Rose of Ruby and the Cross of Gold; that even as in us is the knowledge of the rites of power ineffable: Thou SHALT this day become manifest unto visible appearance before us, in the magical triangle without this Circle of Art: [It should now have arrived at the Magical Hour Tafrac, commencing at 8h. 32' P.M. If not, then the Adepti seat themselves, and await that time. When it is fulfilled, the Assistant Magus places the sigil on the Altar in the right quarter: the Magus advances to the East of the Altar, lays her left hand upon it, in her right holding the sword with its point upon the centre of the sigil. The Associate Magus holds the Magical Candle for her to read by: and the Magus of the Fires the Book of Invocations, turning the pages that she may read continually. She recites:] Hear ye, ye lords of Truth, hear ye, ye invoked powers of the sphere of Kokab, that all is now ready for the commencement of this Evocation!
THE POTENT EXORCISM
[To be said, assuming the mask or form of the Spirit Taphthartharath.] Taw O Thou Mighty Spirit of Mercury, Taphthartharath! I bind, command and very potently do conjure Thee: Peh By the Majesty of the terrible Name of Taw, Vau, Aleph, Bet, Tzaddi, Mem-final, Yod, Heh, Lamed, Aleph, The Gods of the Armies of the Mem-final, Yod, Heh, Lamed, Aleph, Yod, Nun, Bet By and in the name of: Lamed, Aleph, Koph, Yod, Mem Great Archangel of God, that ruleth in the Sphere of Kokab, by and in the name of: Lamed, Aleph, Peh, Resh Great Angel of Mercury; by and in the Name of: Lamed, Aleph, Yod, Resh, Yod, Tet The Mighty Intelligence of Kokab; By and in the Name of the Sephira Hod And in the name of that thy sphere KOKAB That Thou come forth here now, in this present day and hour, and appear in visible form before us; in the great magic triangle without this Circle of Art. Taw I bind and conjure Thee anew: By the magical figures which are traced upon the ground: By the Magic Seal of Mercury I bear upon my breast: By the Eight Magic Lamps that flame around me: By Thy seal and sigil which I bear upon my heart: that Thou come forth, here, now, in this present day and hour, and appear in visible and material form before us, in the great magic triangle without this Circle of Art. Resh I bind and conjure thee anew: By the Wisdom of Thoth the Mighty God: By the Light of the Magic Fire: By the Unutterable Glory of the Godhead within me: By all powerful names and rites: that Thou come forth, here, now, in this present day and hour, and appear in visible and material form before us, in the great magical triangle without this Circle of Art. Taw I bind and conjure Thee anew: By the powers of Word and of Will: By the Powers of Number and Name: By the Powers of Colour and Form: By the Powers of Sigil and Seal: That Thou come forth, here, now, in this present day and hour, and appear in visible and material form before us in the great magical triangle without this Circle of Art. Resh I bind and conjure thee anew: By all the Magic of Light: By the Ruby Rose on the Cross of Gold: By the Glory of the Sun and Moon: By the flashing radiance of the Magic Telesmata: By the Names of God that make Thee tremble every day! That Thou come forth, here, now, in this present day and hour, and appear in visible and material form before us in the great Magic triangle without this Circle of Art! Taw But if thou art disobedient and unwilling to come: Then will I curse Thee by the Mighty Names of God! And I will cast Thee down from Thy Power and Place! And I will torment Thee with new and terrible names! And I will blot out Thy place from the Universe; And Thou shalt "never" rise again! So come Thou forth quickly, Thou Mighty Spirit Taphthartharath, come Thou forth quickly from thy abodes and retreats! Come unto us, and appear before us in visible and material form within the great Magical triangle without this Circle of Art, courteously answering all our demands, and see Thou that Thou deceive us in no wise ___ lest ___ [Take up the veiled sigil and strike it thrice with the blade of the Magic sword, then hold it in the left aloft in the air, at the same time stamping thrice with the Right Foot. Assistant Magus now takes sigil and places it in the North: S.S.D.D. returns to her seat, takes lotus wand (or Ibis sceptre) and says:] The voice of the Exorcist said unto me, let me shroud myself in Darkness, peradventure thus may I manifest in Light. I am an only Being in an abyss of Darkness, from the Darkness came I forth ere my birth, from the silence of a primal sleep. And the Voice of Ages answered unto my soul:
"Creature of Mercury, who art called Taphthartharath! The Light shineth in Thy darkness, but thy darkness comprehendeth it not!" Let the Mystic Circumambulation take place in the Path of Darkness, with the Magic Light of Occult science to guide our way! [I.A. takes up sigil in left and candle in right. Starting at North they circumambulate once. S.S.D.D. rises, and passes round the Temple before them, halting at the Gate of the West. Sigil bared by I.A., purified and consecrated: S.S.D.D., as Hiereus, assuming the mask of the Spirit, strikes the sigil (now partly bared) "once" with the Magic Sword, and says:] Thou canst not pass from concealment unto manifestation save by the virtue of the name Elohim! Before all things are the Chaos and the Darkness, and the Gates of the Land of Night. I am he whose name is Darkness; I am the Great One of the Paths of the Shades! I am the Exorcist in the midst of the exorcism: appear thou therefore without fear before me, for I am He in whom Fear is not! Thou hast known me, so pass thou on! [Magus of Art passes round to the Throne of the East, Assistant Magus re-veils the sigil and carries it round once more. They halt, bare, purify and consecrate sigil as before: they approach the Gate of the East. Sigil unveiled: S.S.D.D. smiting sigil once with lotus wand.] Thou canst not pass from concealment unto manifestation save by virtue of the name of I.H.V.H. After the formless and the void and the Darkness cometh the knowledge of the Light. I am that Light which riseth in the Darkness: I am the Exorcist in the midst of the exorcism: appear Thou therefore in Visible Form before me, for I am the wielder of the forces of the Balance. Thou hast known me now, so pass Thou on unto the Cubical Altar of the Universe! [Sigil re-veiled, and conducted to altar, placed on West of triangle; S.S.D.D. passes to Altar holding sigil and sword as before. On her right hand is AE.A. with the Magic Candle: on her left is D.P.A.L. with the ritual. Behind her to the East of the Magical Cauldron is I.A. casting into the milk at each appropriate moment the right ingredient. Afterwards, as S.S.D.D. names each Magical Name, I.A. draws in the perfected Hell-broth the sigils, appropriate thereunto: at which time S.S.D.D. recites the:]
STRONGER AND MORE POTENT CONJURATION
Come forth! Come forth! Come forth unto us, Spirit of Kokab Taphthartharath, I conjure Thee! Come! Accept of us these magical sacrifices, prepared to give Thee body and form. Herein are blended the magical elements of Thy body, the symbols of Thy mighty being. For the sweet scent of the mace is that which shall purify Thee finally from the Bondage of Evil. And the heat of the magical fire is my will which volatilises the gross matter of Thy Chaos, enabling thee to manifest Thyself in pleasing form before us. And the flesh of the serpent is the symbol of Thy body, which we destroy by water and fire, that it may be renewed before us. And the Blood of the Serpent is the Symbol of the Magic of the Word Messiah, whereby we triumph over Nahash. And the all-binding Milk is the magical water of Thy purification. And the Fire which flames over all [assistant lights Hell-broth] is the utter power of our sacred rites! Come forth! Come forth! Come forth unto us, Spirit of Mercury, O Taphthartharath. I bind and conjure Thee by Him that sitteth for ever on the Throne of Thy Planet, the Knower, the Master, the All-Dominating by Wisdom, Thoth the Great King, Lord of the Upper and the Lower Crowns! I bind and conjure Thee by the Great Name IAHDONHI Whose power is set flaming above Thy Palaces, and ruleth over Thee in the midst of Thy gloomy Habitations. And by the powers of the mighty letter Beth: which is the house of our God, and the Crown of our Understanding and Knowledge. And by the great Magic Word StiBeTTChePhMeFShiSS which calleth Thee from Thy place as Thou fleest before the presence of the Spirit of Light and the Crown! And by the name ZBaTh, which symbolises Thy passage from Mercury in Gemini unto us in Malkuth: Come forth, come forth, come forth! Taphthartharath! In the name of IAHDONHI: I invoke Thee: appear! appear! Taphthartharath! In the name of Elohim Tzebaoth! I invoke Thee: appear! appear! Taphthartharath! In the Name of Mikhael: I invoke Thee: appear! appear! Taphthartharath! In the Name of Raphael: I invoke Thee: appear! appear! Taphthartharath! In the Name of Tiriel: I invoke Thee: appear! appear! Taphthartharath! In the Name of Asboga: I invoke Thee: appear! appear! Taphthartharath! In the Name of Din and Doni: I invoke Thee: appear! appear! Taphthartharath! In the Name of Taphthartharath: I invoke Thee: appear! appear! O Thou Mighty Angel who art Lord of the 17th Degree of Gemini, wherein now Mercury takes refuge, send thou unto me that powerful but blind force in the form of Taphthartharath. I conjure thee by the Names of Mahiel and Onuel, they who rejoice. Come forth unto us therefore, O Taphthartharath, Taphthartharath, and appear thou in visible and material form before us in the great Magical triangle without this Circle of Art! And if any other Magus of Art, or any other school than ours, is now invoking Thee by potent spells; or if Thou art bound by Thy vow, or Thy duties, or the terrible bonds of the Magic of Hell; then I let shine upon Thee the glory of the symbol of the Rose and the Cross; and I tell Thee by that symbol that Thou art free of all vows, of all bonds, for what time Thou comest hither to obey my will! Or if any other Master or Masters of the Magic of Light of the Order of the Rose of Ruby and the Cross of Gold is now binding and invoking Thee by the supreme, absolute and fearful power of this our Art: then I command and conjure Thee by every name and rite already rehearsed that Thou send unto us an ambassador to declare unto us the reason of Thy disobedience. But if Thou art yet disobedient and unwilling to come, then will I curse Thee by the Mighty Names of God, and I will cast Thee forth from Thy Power and Place. And I will torment Thee by horrible and terrible rites. And I will blot out Thy place from the Universe and Thou shalt NEVER rise again! So come Thou forth, Thou Spirit of Mercury, Taphthartharath, come Thou forth quickly, I advise and command Thee. Come Thou forth from Thy abodes and retreats. Come Thou forth unto us, and appear before us in this Magical triangle without this Circle of Art: in fair and human form, courteously answering in an audible voice all of our demands. As is written: "Kiss the Son lest He be angry! If His anger be kindled, yea, but a little ___ Blessed are they that put their trust in Him!" [The Mighty Magus of Art lifts up the sigil towards Heaven, tears off from it the Black Veil, and cries:] Creature of Kokab, long hast Thou dwelt in Darkness! Quit the Night and seek the Day! [Sigil is replaced to West of the triangle; Magus holds the Sword erect (point upwards) over its centre, and lays her left hand upon it, saying:] By all the names, powers and rites already rehearsed, I conjure Thee thus unto visible apparition: KHABS AM PEKHT. KONX OM PAX. LIGHT IN EXTENSION. [Saith the Magus of Art:] As the Light hidden in Darkness can manifest therefrom, SO SHALT THOU become manifest from concealment unto manifestation! [The Magus of Art takes up the sigil, stands at East of Altar facing West, and says:]
THE CONJURATION OF THE INTELLIGENCE TIRIEL
Tiriel, Angel of God, in the name of IAHDONHI I conjure thee send thou unto us this spirit TAPHTHARTHARATH. Do thou force him to manifest before us without this Circle of Art.
Tiriel, in the name of Elohim Tzebaoth, send to us in form material this spirit Taphthartharath.
Tiriel, in the name of Beni Elohim, send to us in form material this spirit Taphthartharath.
Tiriel, in the name of Michael, send to us in form material this spirit Taphthartharath.
Tiriel, in the name of Raphael, send to us in visible form this spirit Taphthartharath.
Tiriel, in the name of Hod, send to us in visible form this spirit Taphthartharath.
O Tiriel, Tiriel: in all the mighty signs, and seals, and symbols here gathered together, I conjure thee in the Name of the Highest to force this Spirit Taphthartharath unto visible manifestation before us, in the great triangle without this Circle of Art. [The Magus now places the sigil between the mystic pillars, and attacks it as Enterer, directing upon it her whole will: following this projection by the sign of silence. If he does not yet appear, then repeat the invocation to Tiriel from the throne of the East. This process may be repeated thrice. But if not even then the Spirit come, then an error hath been committed, in which case replace Sigil on altar, holding sword as usual, and say:]
THE PRAYER UNTO THE GREAT GOD OF HEAVEN
O ye great Lords of the Hall of the Twofold Manifestation of Truth, who preside over the weighing of the Souls in the Place of Judgment before AESHOORI, Give me your hands, for I am made as ye! Give me your hands, give me your magic powers, that I may have given unto me the force and the Power and the Might irresistible, which shall compel this disobedient and malignant spirit, Taphthartharath, to appear before me, that I may accomplish this evocation of arts according to all my works and all my desires. In myself I am nothing: in ye I am all self, and exist in the selfhood of the Mighty to Eternity! O Thoth, who makest victorious the word of AESHOORI against his adversaries, make thou my word, who am Osiris, triumphant and victorious over this spirit: Taphthartharath Amen. [Return to place of the Hierophant, and repeat, charging. He now will certainly appear. But so soon as he appears, again let the sigil be purified and censed by the Magus of Art. Then removing from the middle of the sigil the Cord of Bondage, and holding that sigil in her left hand, she will smite with the flat blade of her magic sword, saying:] By and in the Names of IAHDONHI, Elohim Tzebaoth, Michael, Raphael and Tiriel: I invoke upon thee the power of perfect manifestation unto visible appearance! [I.A. now takes up the sigil in his right hand and circumambulates thrice. He places sigil on the ground at the place of the spirit. S.S.D.D., from the place of the Hierophant, now recites (I.A. with sword guarding the place of the spirit, D.P.A.L. holding the Book; and AE.A. holding the magical candle for her to read by)]
AN EXTREMELY POWERFUL CONJURATION
Behold! Thou Great Powerful Prince and Spirit, Taphthartharath, we have conjured Thee hither in this day and hour to demand of Thee certain matters relative to the secret magical knowledge which may be conveyed to us from Thy great master Thoth through Thee. But, before we can proceed further, it is necessary that Thou do assume a shape and form more distinctly material and visible. Therefore, in order that Thou mayest appear more fully visible, and in order that Thou mayest know that we are possessed of the means, rites, powers and privileges of binding and compelling Thee unto obedience, do we rehearse before Thee yet again the mighty words; the Names, the Sigils, and the Powers of the conjurations of fearful efficacy: and learn that if Thou wert under any bond or spell, or in distant lands or elsehow employed, yet nothing should enable Thee to resist the power of our terrible conjuration; for if Thou art disobedient and unwilling to come, we shall curse and imprecate Thee most horribly by the Fearful Names of God the Vast One; and we shall tear from Thee Thy rank and Thy power, and we shall cast Thee down unto the fearful abode of the chained ones and shells, and Thou shalt never rise again! Wherefore make haste, O Thou mighty spirit Taphthartharath, and appear very visibly before us, in the magical triangle without this Circle of Art. I bind and conjure Thee unto very visible appearance in the Divine and Terrible Name IAHDONHI, By the Name IAHDONHI, And in the Name IAHDONHI, I command Thee to assume before us a very visible and material Form. By and in the Mighty Name of God the Vast One. ELOHIM TZEBAOTH, And in the Name ELOHIM TZEBAOTH, And by the Name ELOHIM TZEBAOTH, I bind and conjure Thee to come forth very visibly before us. I bind and conjure Thee unto more manifest appearance, O thou Spirit, Taphthartharath. By the Name of MICHAEL, And in the Name of MICHAEL, By and in that Name of MICHAEL, I bind and conjure Thee that Thou stand forth very visibly, endowed with an audible voice, speaking Truth in the Language wherein I have called Thee forth. Let IAHDONHI, ELOHIM TZEBAOTH, MICHAEL, RAPHAEL, BENI ELOHIM, TIRIEL, ASBOGA, DIN, DONI, HOD, KOKAB and every name and spell and scourge of God the Vast One bind Thee to obey my words and will. Behold the standards, symbols and seals and ensigns of our God: obey and fear them, O Thou mighty and potent Spirit, Taphthartharath! Behold our robes, ornaments, insignia and weapons: and say, are not these the things Thou fearest? Behold the magic fire, the mystic lamps, the blinding radiance of the Flashing Tablets! Behold the Magical Liquids of the Material Basis; it is these that have given Thee Form! Hear thou the Magical Spells and Names and chants which bind Thee! Taphthartharath! Taphthartharath! Taphthartharath! Taphthartharath! Taphthartharath! Taphthartharath! Taphthartharath! Arise! Move! Appear! Zodacar Eca od Zodamerahnu odo kikalŠ Imayah piapŠ piamoel od VAOAN!
[If at this time that spirit be duly and rightly materialized, then pass on to the request of the Mighty Magus of Art; but if not, then doth the Magus of Art assume the God form of Thoth, and say:] Thou comest not! Then will I work and work again. I will destroy Thee and uproot Thee out of Heaven and Earth and Hell. Thy place shall be come empty; and the horror of horrors shall abide in Thy heart, and I will overwhelm Thee with fear and trembling, for "SOUL mastering Terror" is my Name. [If at this point he manifest, then pass on to the final Request of the Mighty Magus of Art; if not, continue holding the arms in the sign of Apophis.] Brother Assistant Magus! Thou wilt write me the name of this evil serpent, this spirit Taphthartharath, on a piece of pure vellum, and thou shalt place thereon also His seal and character; that I may curse, condemn and utterly destroy Him for His disobedience and mockery of the Divine and Terrible Names of God the Vast One. [Assistant Magus does this.] Hear ye my curse, O Lords of the Twofold Manifestation of Thmaist. I have evoked the Spirit Taphthartharath in due form by the formulae of Thoth. But He obeys not, He makes no strong manifestation. Wherefore bear ye witness and give ye power unto my utter condemnation of the Mocker of your Mysteries. I curse and blast Thee, O thou Spirit Taphthartharath. I curse Thy life and blast Thy being. I consign Thee unto the lowest Hell of Abaddon. By the whole power of the Order of the Rose of Ruby and the Cross of Gold ___ for that Thou hast failed at their behest, and hast mocked by Thy disobedience at their God-born knowledge ___ by that Order which riseth even unto the white throne of God Himself do I curse Thy life and blast Thy being; and consign Thee unto the lowermost Hell of Abaddon! In the Names of IAHDONHI, Elohim Tzebaoth, Michael, Raphael, Beni Elohim and Tiriel: I curse Thy Life And Blast Thy Being! Down! Sink down to the depths of horror. By every name, symbol, sign and rite that has this day been practised in this Magic Circle: by every power of my soul, of the Gods, of the Mighty Order to which we all belong! I curse Thy Life And Blast Thy Being! Fall, fall down to torment unspeakable! If Thou dost not appear then will I complete the fearful sentence of this curse. God will not help Thee. Thou, Thou hast mocked His Name. [Taking the slip of vellum and thrusting it into the magical Fire.] I bid Thee, O sacred Fire of Art, by the Names and Powers which gave birth unto the Spirit of the Primal Fire: I bind and conjure Thee by every name of God, the Vast One, that hath rule, authority and dominion over Thee; that Thou do spiritually burn, blast, destroy and condemn this spirit Taphthartharath, whose name and seal are written herein, causing Him to be removed and destroyed out of His powers, places and privileges: and making Him endure the most horrible tortures as of an eternal and consuming Fire, so long as He shall come not at my behest! The Earth shall suffocate Him, for mine are its powers, and the Fire shall torment Him, for mine is its magic. And Air shall not fan Him, nor Water shall cool Him. But Torment unspeakable, Horror undying, Terror unaltering, Pain unendurable; the words of my curse shall be on Him for ever; God shall not hear Him, nor holpen Him never, and the curse shall be on Him for ever and ever!
[So soon as he shall appear, extinguish that fire with consecrated water, and cry:] O, Thou Mighty Spirit Taphthartharath, forasmuch as Thou art come, albeit tardily, do I revoke my magic curse, and free Thee from all its bonds save only from those that bind Thee here! [He having appeared, the "Assistant Magus of Art" holds aloft his sword, saying:] Hear ye, Great Lord of the Hall of Dual Truth; Hear ye, Immortal Powers of the Magic of Light, that this Spirit Taphthartharath hath been duly and properly invoked in accordance with the sacred rites of Power Ineffable. [The "Mighty Magus of Art" now says:] O ye Great Lords of the Glory and Light of the radiant Orb of Kokab; ye in whom are vested the knowledge of the Mighty powers, the knowledge of all the hidden Arts and Sciences of Magic and of Mystery! Ye! Ye! I invoke and conjure! Cause ye this mighty Serpent Taphthartharath to perform all our demands: manifest ye through him the Majesty of your presences, the divinity of your knowledge, that we may all be led yet one step nearer unto the consummation of the Mighty Work, one step nearer unto the great white throne of the Godhead; and that, in so doing, "His" being may become more glorified and enlightened, more capable of receiving the Influx of that Divine Spirit which dwells in the heart of Man and God! [S.S.D.D. now formulates the desires as follows:] O thou Great Potent Spirit Taphthartharath, I do command and very potently conjure thee by the Majesty of Thoth, the Great God, Lord of Amena, King and Lord Eternal of the Magic of Light: That Thou teach unto us continually the Mysteries of the Art of Magic, declaring unto us now in what best manner may each of us progress towards the accomplishment of the Great Work. Teach us the Mysteries of all the Hidden Arts and Sciences which are under the Dominion of Mercury, and finally swear Thou by the Great Magic Sigil that I hold in my hand, that thou wilt in future always speedily appear before us; coming whensoever Thy sigil is unveiled from its yellow silken covering: and manifesting whensoever we enable Thee by the offerings and sacrifices of Thy nature! To the end that Thou mayest be a perpetual link of communication between the Great God Thoth under his three forms and ourselves.
THE FINAL ADMONITION
O Thou mighty and potent prince of Spirits Taphthartharath: forasmuch as Thou hast obeyed us in all our demands, I now finally bind and conjure Thee: That Thou hereafter harm me not, or these my companions, or this place, or aught pertaining unto all of us: that Thou faithfully do perform all those things even as Thou hast sworn by the great and all-powerful Names of God the Vast One; and that Thou dost deceive us in nothing, and forasmuch as Thou has been obedient unto our call, and hast sworn to obey our commands: Therefore do Thou feel and receive these grateful odours of the fine perfumes of our Art, which are agreeable unto Thee. [Magus of Fires burns much incense.] And now I say unto Thee, in the name of IHSVH, depart in peace unto Thy habitations and abodes in the invisible. I give unto Thee the blessing of God in the Name of IAHDONHI: may the influx of the Divine Light inspire Thee and lead Thee unto the ways of peace! Let there be peace betwixt us and Thee; and come Thou hastily when we invoke and call Thee: Shalom! Shalom! Shalom! [Reverse circumambulations and closing rituals of Mercury, &c. &c.]
[From The Equinox vol I, number III. The Temple of Solomon the King]
1 This data contains typographic errors from the first edition.
2 In other words, the more difficult ingredients were probably obtained by buying a snake preserved in alcohol ___ moderns be careful, other fluids are sometimes used these days!
3 Soror Sapientia Sapienti Dono Data [Florence Beatrice Farr] (born 7th July 1860, died 29th April 1917) Joined the Golden Dawn in July 1890 and entered the Second Order on 2nd August 1891.
4. Frater I A [Allan Bennett] Joined the Golden Dawn in February 1894, taking the motto ‘Voco’. He entered the Second Order in May 1895 and took the magical motto ‘Iehi Aour’: ‘Let there be Light’.
5. Aequo Animo [Charles Rosher] (1858-1936) Joined the Golden Dawn: May 1894 and the Second Order on 26th September 1895.
6. De Profundis Ad Lucem (Latin: "From the depths to the light") [Frederick Leigh Gardner] (born: 31st March 1857, died 1930) Joined the Golden Dawn: 1894 (initiation on 20th March 1894) taking the motto ‘Crede Experto’ and entered the Second Order on 2nd April 1895 where his new motto became D.P.A.L.
7. This is the cry of the Dionysian mysteries. It was shouted to warn the uninitiated that the new candidates were about to run amuck. Rough translation: "Look out! Look out! Here come the Drunks!"
8. See "Liber O," The Equinox, vol. I. No. 2.
9. See Spirit Table, and the Elemental Calls of Dr. Dee, as preserved in the Sloane MSS. in the British Museum.
10. See Tablet of Water, and the Elemental Calls of Dr. Dee.
11. The Spirit Tablet.
12. See "Liber O," The Equinox, vol. I. No. 2.
13. See Tablet of Spirit.
14. See Tablet of Fire.
15. See Tablet of Spirit.
16. See Tablet of Air.
17 See Tablet of Earth.
18 The Four Elemental Tablets.
19 See "Liber O," The Equinox, vol. I. No. 2.
SONGS OF LOVE AND INFINITY
BY BARRY VAN-ASTEN
Illustration: The Lilith Tree, by Barry Van-Asten
This sequence of poems is written in the sonnet form and is a veiled invocation of the Love Goddess.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Could love but be here by my side
In fairest measure and motion, veiled
By the empty half-light, all aglow;
Where dark centuries come crashing from the void
Into the miracle of existence, like something hailed
By the extremity of love, though long ago,
And this is how my sad heart sailed
On music's broken wing - and died.
O if I could glimpse its light once more
And this movement lost in evening air
Were not some vision of youthful ways
Worn by the passing of time, before
Passion's resurrection sought it there,
Arranged in the splendour of my days.
And I would not be alone, with your heart and your hand,
Caressed into celestial surrender, joined
For an eternity of songs, sung from the heart,
To radiate love with nought to command.
But it's not in the tenderness that soothes, I find,
This perpetual resolve for a dying art;
Or in the joy that's found in companioned mind
When heart and hand are one. To understand
Love's transference, drawn into nought,
Like embryos in amber, where two worlds hide -
Those planets unshaken by time and man
Are unaware of reason and finer thought;
Yet a simpler form of sorcery will decide
The magnitude of love and evolution.
For the rhythm of the heart cannot explain
What sick invention lies in man,
When love's momentum falls away
From the chain of possession it can't contain.
A silhouette of strange emotion
Tumbles upon truth that it cannot say;
To curl at a universe because it can,
With no fear of destiny, or mortal pain
To blind it by the growth of woman's beauty.
And we sigh as the songs of love within
Our beating breasts, gently unfold
Our smooth skins to this tragedy;
Afraid of our delicate passions that spin
Spells of love beneath a rose of gold.
And if my love with me now lay
As oft' in my dreams I saw her set,
Like some proud Venus with satyr stare:
What words could I conjure in me to say?
These tears from the avenues of regret
Where I fall from grace - but she is there,
All warmth and loving, and lips are met
But still more is lost between her and me,
Within the green-shaded pause that led
To reflections of loneliness and time remaining.
Yet we could not embrace, for sadly we
Were like the interlude that left words dead,
Sunken and separated by everything.
And what will be is what will be,
With no sense of my sole sphere that shuns
The veiled root of beauty's bloom,
Unchecked, by nature's simplicity;
To flower in darkness, that subtly succumbs,
Unmasked, into the arms of sorrow's gloom.
And this wretched blood through dark veins, runs
Directionless, to unanswerable beauty.
But what love would seek this heart and stay
To find its fourfold chambers grim?
For these are the dreams of midnight's dread,
Where stars are born and turned away,
Away from the silence and the tragedy and the dim
Eternal echo of love's soft tread.
In seeking this divine light of love
There is sadness ripped from history,
Where the ghosts of words lie silent and curled.
And my body yearns, yet cannot move
Through time, and no nearer each are we
In perfecting the music of our world.
I grow different and ways once known to me
Are delicate in ordeals that seem to prove
That beyond these songs nought can compare...
As morning blossom begins to fall -
Fingers, caressing the silken flow
Of shoulder-shaken midnight hair,
Find love in sadness, after all,
And tears of glass are music's sorrow.
Should this veil between us ever part
To reveal love's course and astronomy,
Where the gentle ballad of womanhood
Sings soft and sweet within my heart;
Triumphant in strength, caressing me
With songs that soothe my every mood.
To pass through this memory of sleep, and see
Beyond nature's infinitesimal art,
Perfected by changes, still unknown;
To whisper solemnly, that beautiful name
That lives in the one light I adore,
Where childhood's blossom, first was sown
In that dread temple, like a flame
To flicker in darkness, for evermore.
Where wild in the heart and mad with love,
Cold of all thoughts which were not of you,
As the moon, in its darkling embrace, always slips
From my fiery mantle and my every move.
And thus I am shaped, and hopelessly drawn to
The curve and precission of your lips;
To cling to their ecstasy, and pursue
This vision of delicate creation, above
All passion. Where tombs of violet night,
See more than tears in this lyrical death
And surrenders to the silence of the dead.
To hear only whispers from the radiant light
With the aroma of roses upon your breath;
To touch only shadows at your fearless tread...
That love which I seek no stranger grows
Than that which is of the dark always,
Torn, to crawl down the centuries
And ache with the sound of man's sorrows.
The wild appetites, the cruel scent that strays
Through the long summer of her mysteries;
To breathe the music of nights and days,
Cursed to blow where the rough wind blows.
And in that expansive - love, there lies
Some rich echo, absorbed by darkness,
Filled with rage and terribly wronged,
Where the penetrating light destroys
And spoils those beautiful lips that kiss
In evening dreams, where everything's changed.
And there is a sadness in beauty beyond all things;
Its many petalled mystery remains unknown,
Like the midnight flower in fear of the night,
Startled, awaits the dawn and sings.
But that which is concealed and that which is shown:
Two ghosts grown separate that shun delight.
For below is the root and above is the crown:
Creation, destruction, their understanding brings
A marriage of opposites by enchantment;
A continual song like an echoing prayer
Of devotion, to release love's shadow
By seduction, from its element;
To flow from the heart that cannot bear
To wonder at its sensual might, and go...
Will sleep not take me far away
And fold me in its fiery wings;
To rest in the hollows of its sonorous sigh
Where midnight masks this world of clay?
And is there momentum in all things
That live upon the earth, and die?
The soul is stricken by strange sufferings
And has no will nor belief, to pray -
But this is blasphemy, you say - I know,
For the spirit in sick retreat of night
Finds no perfection to adore;
It is incomplete and compelled to go,
Soft in breath and tread, into the light:
Be it devil, be it god - it cares no more!
I know no tender ways, I know
Nothing of that strange delight
That the melody of the heart can bring.
And there is no feeling for words, and no
Complete devotion that can unite...
Lift up your joyous soul and sing,
Sing of love's madness and its might;
Of spring and creation, and unto them go,
When the gulf between our hearts, once wide,
Is no more so - and I will come;
Will come by satin moonlight cast,
To linger softly at your side
And part those pressed lips that lie dumb,
And wrench you from the varied past.
O adorable youth! - has your love fled;
Has that which filled the heart, now gone?
And is my world fallen where shadows lie long
Through remembered seasons of the dead;
Steered into silence by a serpent sun?
O heart, empty of ceremony and song,
Where the light divine once brightly shone.
And these are the last words of an old world, ended,
Lost to the unutterable shades of fate;
Fearful of what is to become
Without the glory of your radiant name
In this masquerade of tears and hate;
Crowned a fool by wisdom, dumb,
And born of sorrow, to die the same.
No peace of mind, nor spirit, pure,
Can show me love how it shall be,
And not these dull senses of desire,
That sink before her radiant nature
And dance by the pale moon-hungry sea.
The song is still, but the heart is fire
And will for evermore, adore thee,
By the sacred light of your timeless allure.
But I will not look on youth again,
For dreams are false, and this I know:
We sigh at nothingness, yet we sing
And tire and tremble to the strain
Of our awful selves, and go... and go...
Unto the end, and still sigh - nothing!
Three loves have I, one for the heart,
One for the living and one for the dead.
Love's threefold essence, strange and strong
And silent, in its praise, to part
The words of joy that won't be said;
The songs of love that won't be sung.
Time that the rose of youth ran red
And loneliness gave up its sick idol - art,
Where the night perfume of summers gone and to come
Have grown stranger by the brute of desire,
Where those songs of love and infinity
Still long for the pains of angeldom;
Governed by solitude, where three loves are
Silent of song in love's trinity.
But to sing of that splendour from afar
Is to lie with the anguish of the dead,
Where the continuity of sleep shall yield
The secret ardour of a star.
And when the momentum of the heart has fled,
A palace of song shall be revealed;
A resolve of longing, and of reason, that dread
The senseless conclusion of what we are.
But in search of your radiance, still I rove
From moments great that I too have known;
To the featureless changing of the land
And the terrible truth that's told by love:
Love in despair, love immemorial, blown
By a lyrical torment, too cruel to understand.
Love is the law, love under will.
THE WAND OF SILENCE
Excerpts from the Magickal Diaries
Excerpts from the Magickal Diaries
OF AUDRAREP
PART EIGHT
Wednesday 16th May. I woke at 03.00 a.m. to find a large butterfly, the size of a pigeon scrambling about in the darkness of my room, by the window. Of course it was not real, but I still got up and looked for it! I made notes upon a ritual from 3-7 p.m. – A Talismanic working. I prepared a Talisman and dedicated it to Venus – Hagiel, Kedemel, with Planetary seal etc and the Magical Square... I used the ______ Tarot card for my Talisman.
THE KEDEMEL WORKING
At 10.00 p.m. I prepared the circle and placed the implements needed within the circle: candle, incense, talisman, the magical link. Without the circle was drawn the Triangle of Art with the Names of Power.
I. Standing outside the circle. 10.35 p.m. The Talisman and the Magick Square. ‘May all the devils flee and particularly those that are inimicable to this operation. When I enter herein, I call with humility that God the Almighty entering this circle, will cast down divine pleasure and prosperity, joy, charity and greeting. May the Angels of Peace defend this circle, and may discord be banished from it. Help and magnify me, O Lord, thy most Holy Name, bless my meeting and my speech. O Lord our God, bless my entry into this circle, for thou art blessed, for ever and ever, Amen’.
II. Entering the circle. A general consecration: ‘May all that is within this circle be protected and consecrated by the Power of the Pentagram and the Hexagram and the Holy Names hereby invoked’.
III. The Opening Ceremony. Perform the rituals of the Pentagram and the Hexagram. Circumambulation seven times [7 for Venus]. Make the sign of the enterer [Horus] on passing the East. The Kabbalistic Cross. With hands folded, give the blessing of Kamea: ‘Blessed art thou O Lord, who hast sanctified thy great name and hast revealed it to thy pious ones to show its power and might in the language, in the workings of it, and in the utterance of the mouth:
' Yod He Vau He'.
IV. The Sphere of Netzach. Light the candle and the incense with the words: ‘I offer thee this incense as the purest which I have been able to obtain. O great Adonai, Elohim, Ariel, Jehovam, deign to receive it as an acceptable sacrifice. O great Adonai, be favourable to me in thy power, and grant success to this work. Amen’.
V. The Confession.
[X] (knock)
‘Nescio quis sim
Nescio unde veniam
Nescio quo eam Quaero
Sed quid nescio’. (repeat three times)
[X]
VI. (a) The Invocation. * This was completed by speaking the name ‘Kedemel’ seven times. The incense. The talisman is passed through the incense smoke three times, with the words of consecration: ‘Accedat in nobis Therion ignem sui amoris et flammam aeternae caritatis’ – (‘I am uplifted in thine heart, and the kisses of the stars rain hard upon thy body’).
[X]
+
The Cross is manifested into the
flesh
VI. (b) Conjuration. ‘Kedemel, I call upon your blessed presence, in the name of Yehovah Tzabaoth, Hanael, the Grace of God, Hagiel, and in the name of the Name of the most Holy, Adonai, to consecrate this talisman, and indwell it with your powers to attract that which I desire. May its effects be speedy and successful, for there is no law beyond love is the law, love under will. In the name of the most high, Adonai, Amen’.
Make the sign upon the talisman
[XXX X
XXX]
[To constrain, which was used on this occasion: ‘Mea artis, non immemor Et nomen Dei lente loquor Yod He Vau He, Tzabaoth’.] – Kedemel was present in camel form.
VII. The Magical Link. And a period of concentration upon the task which is to be performed.
VIII. The Licence to Depart. The discharge of the force: ‘Effusus labor, Defuncta vita. Fiat nunc voluntas mea’.
IX. The Closing Ceremony. Perform the banishing rituals of the Pentagram and the Hexagram. The reverse circumambulation with the sign of the enterer [Horus] in the East seven times.
X. The End of the Working. At 11.10 p.m. The Talisman was placed into a red pouch and the circle and the Triangle of Art were destroyed.
*Conjuration: ‘I invoke and conjure Thee, O spirit Kedemel’ etc. See also VI (b) further conjuration.
Thursday 17th May. 12.30 a.m. Open T. Invoke Fire Pentagram. The signs were good.
Saturday 19th May. 01.30 a.m. Invoke Fire Pentagram with the Tatwa.
Monday 21st May. 01.00 a.m. Open T. Invoke Earth Pentagram with Tatwa. I used ‘Abrahadabra’ as a vibrational mantra. The Enterer. Invoke the Names of Power for Earth. The Hierophant again!
Wednesday 23rd May. 10.15 a.m. 8.50 p.m. Asana, my position. A red triangle on a white background (actual). I recite the ‘Hymn to Pan’. Good results. The colour became an electric glowing violet. I vibrated the names of Fire. Duration of asana: 15 minutes. Midnight: Open T. Invoke Fire Pentagram and I saw myself as a Priestess of ancient Egypt in some sort of ceremony in which I was reluctant to participate.
Friday 25th May. Success in the Kedemel working!
Saturday 26th May. 02.40 a.m. Open T. Invoke Earth Pentagram with Tatwa. Unwanted images.
Sunday 27th May. 12.45 a.m. Invoke Fire Pentagram. Mind too active and I am still in some pain.
Monday 28th May. 01.15 a.m. Open
T. ‘Do what thou wilt’ etc as a mantra then changed to A.M.P.H. – Nuit! Cabala:
Greek and Hebrew for most of the day till 8.00 p.m.
Tuesday 29th May. 5.09 p.m. Asana: legs crossed. End at 5.49 p.m. 9.00 p.m. Asana: the Dragon [kneeling, hands on thighs]. Acute pain and ended at 9.20 p.m.
Wednesday 30th May. 01.00 a.m. Open T. Invoke Fire Pentagram. Middle Pillar. Vibrate Names. A good visual pentagram and rising. Meaningless voices, consumed by sleep. 06.00 a.m. The beginning of the Adorations [see Liber Resh vel Helios in Magick] Morning: Ra, in the sign of my grade. Midday: Ahathoor. Sunset: Tum. Midnight: Kephra.
Thursday 31st May. Open T. Invoke Earth Pentagram. I heard these words spoken: ‘The Fool knows many things, but the Hermit knows but one thing’. [compare with Isiah Berlin’s ‘Hedgehog and the Fox’]. Tatwa very vivid. 06.00 a.m. Adoration. Midday. Sunset and Midnight. [The Adorations continue daily without fail so I will not waste space in recording the fact].
Friday 1st June. 01.15 a.m. R.C. in Ajna after Opening the T. Mantra: A.M.P.H. Quite good – duality.
Saturday 2nd June. LAShNAL=30+1+300+50+6+1+30= 418 AZNIA=1+7+50+10+1= 69 [period of O=O days for _____.] LAZDNIA=30+1+7+4+50+10+1= 93 ASDNIAH=1+60+4+50+10+1+5= 131 [Pan]
Sunday 3rd June. 01.15 a.m. Performed The Star Ruby Ritual (no other work). A little before midnight performed The Star Ruby and the Lesser Hexagram Ritual.
Tuesday 5th June. 02.00 a.m. Open T. Lesser Hexagram Ritual. Astral rising. Very good and strong. I used my old formula of ‘I breathe in, I breathe out; you breathe in, you breathe out; we breathe in, we breathe out!’ 12.35 p.m.
The Eucharist of One: Take four elements= 4-4+ 0. Now, this nought must be something, i.e. a unity, a whole, thus it equals one element (substance). A physical waste product. There is a Tetragrammaton which is formed – I.A.O. (or Y.H.V.H.) etc, which is infinite (a circle of life, death and rebirth – or resurrection). Crowley says that he reveals it plainly within his works.
Wednesday 6th June. 01.00 a.m. Open T. Pentagram and Hexagram. Rising good. Mantra: Abrahadabra also good.
Thursday 7th June. 01.00 a.m. Invoke Spirit. L.B.R. Pentagram and Hexagram= Duality, my astral body was working independent of me. Mantra: Abrahadabra.
Friday 8th June. 12.45 a.m. Invoke Spirit. Rising and Mantra: ‘Do what thou wilt’ etc.
Saturday 9th June. Further notes on ASNIA –
ASNIA= 122
2X61= 122 (61= AIN= Nothing or Zero)
0=2 the Magical Doctrine of Thelema [zero equals two]
122-11(the number of Magical expansion) = 111
111= Aleph in full [ALP= 1+30+80] signifies the Holy Trinity: Nuit, Hadit, Ra-Hoor-Khuit
(or Heru-Ra-Ha more precisely to include H.P.K.)
111 is also AUM (AMOUN) and a number of the sun, in full 666 (sun=6)
6X111=666. 111 is also the root sound of OMNE – [Greek: Pan]
0=Mat (MAAT) truth. And the Fool of the Tarot. The beginning of the Great Work.
Harpocrates – child Horus. Air.
2=Wisdom, the second emanation of Ra-Hoor-Khuit.
Aleph (0) separates and joins these two emanations.
2=Chokmah. 2X11=22, the Magical manifestation of Chokmah. [Word/Will] Moon.
The High Priestess of the Tarot.
0= the Holy Ghost. 2= the Virgin.
ASNIA in full= 111+120_110+20+111= 472 (or 682 using Sh [330] for Samekh.
AShNA= 662
ASNIAL= 546
LASNIAL= 620 etc
Sunday 10th June. I decided upon a Talismanic working
Tuesday 29th May. 5.09 p.m. Asana: legs crossed. End at 5.49 p.m. 9.00 p.m. Asana: the Dragon [kneeling, hands on thighs]. Acute pain and ended at 9.20 p.m.
Wednesday 30th May. 01.00 a.m. Open T. Invoke Fire Pentagram. Middle Pillar. Vibrate Names. A good visual pentagram and rising. Meaningless voices, consumed by sleep. 06.00 a.m. The beginning of the Adorations [see Liber Resh vel Helios in Magick] Morning: Ra, in the sign of my grade. Midday: Ahathoor. Sunset: Tum. Midnight: Kephra.
Thursday 31st May. Open T. Invoke Earth Pentagram. I heard these words spoken: ‘The Fool knows many things, but the Hermit knows but one thing’. [compare with Isiah Berlin’s ‘Hedgehog and the Fox’]. Tatwa very vivid. 06.00 a.m. Adoration. Midday. Sunset and Midnight. [The Adorations continue daily without fail so I will not waste space in recording the fact].
Friday 1st June. 01.15 a.m. R.C. in Ajna after Opening the T. Mantra: A.M.P.H. Quite good – duality.
Saturday 2nd June. LAShNAL=30+1+300+50+6+1+30= 418 AZNIA=1+7+50+10+1= 69 [period of O=O days for _____.] LAZDNIA=30+1+7+4+50+10+1= 93 ASDNIAH=1+60+4+50+10+1+5= 131 [Pan]
Sunday 3rd June. 01.15 a.m. Performed The Star Ruby Ritual (no other work). A little before midnight performed The Star Ruby and the Lesser Hexagram Ritual.
Tuesday 5th June. 02.00 a.m. Open T. Lesser Hexagram Ritual. Astral rising. Very good and strong. I used my old formula of ‘I breathe in, I breathe out; you breathe in, you breathe out; we breathe in, we breathe out!’ 12.35 p.m.
The Eucharist of One: Take four elements= 4-4+ 0. Now, this nought must be something, i.e. a unity, a whole, thus it equals one element (substance). A physical waste product. There is a Tetragrammaton which is formed – I.A.O. (or Y.H.V.H.) etc, which is infinite (a circle of life, death and rebirth – or resurrection). Crowley says that he reveals it plainly within his works.
Wednesday 6th June. 01.00 a.m. Open T. Pentagram and Hexagram. Rising good. Mantra: Abrahadabra also good.
Thursday 7th June. 01.00 a.m. Invoke Spirit. L.B.R. Pentagram and Hexagram= Duality, my astral body was working independent of me. Mantra: Abrahadabra.
Friday 8th June. 12.45 a.m. Invoke Spirit. Rising and Mantra: ‘Do what thou wilt’ etc.
Saturday 9th June. Further notes on ASNIA –
ASNIA= 122
2X61= 122 (61= AIN= Nothing or Zero)
0=2 the Magical Doctrine of Thelema [zero equals two]
122-11(the number of Magical expansion) = 111
111= Aleph in full [ALP= 1+30+80] signifies the Holy Trinity: Nuit, Hadit, Ra-Hoor-Khuit
(or Heru-Ra-Ha more precisely to include H.P.K.)
111 is also AUM (AMOUN) and a number of the sun, in full 666 (sun=6)
6X111=666. 111 is also the root sound of OMNE – [Greek: Pan]
0=Mat (MAAT) truth. And the Fool of the Tarot. The beginning of the Great Work.
Harpocrates – child Horus. Air.
2=Wisdom, the second emanation of Ra-Hoor-Khuit.
Aleph (0) separates and joins these two emanations.
2=Chokmah. 2X11=22, the Magical manifestation of Chokmah. [Word/Will] Moon.
The High Priestess of the Tarot.
0= the Holy Ghost. 2= the Virgin.
ASNIA in full= 111+120_110+20+111= 472 (or 682 using Sh [330] for Samekh.
AShNA= 662
ASNIAL= 546
LASNIAL= 620 etc
Sunday 10th June. I decided upon a Talismanic working
Kedemel Working II
11.00 p.m.
(carried out in the exact manner
as performed on Wednesday 16th May)
Monday 11th June. 12.30 a.m. Open T. Good astral rising.
Wednesday 13th June. 01.00 a.m. Invoke Fire Pentagram. Vibrate Names. Good assumption of form.
Thursday 14th June. Success with the Kedemel working II!
Saturday 16th June. 12.50 a.m. Open T. Fire Tatwa.
Wednesday 20th June. 01.00 a.m. Invoke Fire Tatwa with the Names etc. I used a horizontal ‘rising on the planes’ instead of a vertical. The Eucharist of One – dead matter – the Spirit. This circle squared is a key [O and +] feminine and masculine [Two equals Zero] Love under will.
O= Agape: Love. The Moon. O= Ain – 61.
+= Thelema: Will. The Sun. += Tau – 32 61+32=93
2= Line/Cross – the Phallus.
O= The Circle – the Kteis.
Sulphur Salt Mercury
(fiery, (passive, (flux, Reconciliation= Philosopher’s Stone
Male, female, bisexual,
Soul) body) spirit)
Thursday 21st June. Summer Solstice. 01.15 a.m. Open T. Rising on the planes. I found myself in an old dark house. I had stigmata’s on my hands. Complete rapture, difficult to describe, on entering into the infinite love of Nu. 10.30-11.00 p.m. a ritual which shall remain nameless.
The Rite of Jupiter: the Hismael
Working.
Invoke EL, Tzadqiel, Iophiel, Hismael. The Circle was cast etc... all very dark! The dealings with this rite are silence!
Friday 22nd June. 01.00 a.m. And a golden Ankh of flames was given unto me, after invoking the trinity of Thelema: Nuit, Hadit, Ra-Hoor-Khuit – and I knew it immediately as a sign to ‘go’.
Saturday 23rd June. 12.50 a.m. Invoke Nuit in the astral form. Vibrate ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law, love is the law, love under will’ as a mantra. I made Dharana on the symbol of Nu from the Stele.
Monday 25th June. 01.00 a.m. Open T. Rising on the planes. A golden light with a hexagram above. Mantra: Do what thou wilt etc.
Tuesday 26th June. 01.00 a.m. I used the new formula of the Hexagram and the golden light. Invoke: INRI – Yod, Nun, Resh, Yod/ Virgo, Isis etc and used the L.V.X. signs [see Magick]. I found myself within a jewelled palace. A bat flew about my head.
Wednesday 27th June. 01.00 a.m. Open T. Lesser Banishing Rituals of the Pentagram and the Hexagram. I invoke Nu (I used the golden light and the Hexagram formula). Good rising on the planes. Mantra: Do what thou wilt etc. I saw the name of Horus written in a great book.
P____.=83 [8+3=11]
P____. by Aiq Bkr =11. [8+1+1+1=11]
ASNIA by Aiq Bkr =11
Success in the Jupiter Rite – the Hismael working! Drawing planetary and zodiac seals.
Lingam: Heru-Ra-Ha [Active= Horus, Ra-Hoor-Khuit – the Enterer. Passive= Hoor-Paar-Kraat: Babalon and the Beast conjoined – Yoni= Nuit.
Friday 29th June. Success in the Vision of the Ankh completed!
Sunday 1st July. 01.00 a.m. Open T. Invoke Fire Tatwa. Vibrate Names etc. Good but tired. 7.30 p.m. Made my confession. 9 p.m. Performed the Invocation of Horus from The Equinox of the Gods. Tuesday 3rd July. =O=61 – Ain. Nuit. Womb. [Infinite Space] also the Earth symbol. The Rose of R.C. [Rosy Cross]. The Yoni.
+ = The Point. Hadit (hiding). Matter. Horizontal and Vertical. L.V.X. The Cross of R.C.
The Lingam. =Venus and Love. (0=1,2,4,6,5,3, Sephira on the Tree of Life [Above the Abyss].
+ =6,9,10 and 7,8 Sephira on the Tree of Life [Below the Abyss].
The circle squared =The Formula of the Universe [Ra-Hoor-Khuit].
Also note the Ankh [Rose Cross]
Note: A strain is rent in nature’s ‘fluidic’ vehicle which must be compensated for and balanced to regain equilibrium.
Wednesday 4th July. 12.20 a.m. R.C. in Ajna. The symbolism of R.C. I am making preparations for a Pan working. Either a 63 or a 131 period of devotion. A good alternative is 70 [Ayin= 70 – Capricorn etc].
Thursday 5th July. 01.00 a.m. Dharana on R.C. Mantra: ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will’. Good. The R.C. was propelled into different directions, serpent-like, which I followed, yea! Even unto the Eye of Horus!I found myself in a room, dark with soft moonlight. I was lying on a bed and I saw at the side of the bed the horn of Παν – more like deer antlers. They remained near me, and they were still. I tried to call out, but in vain. I did eventually and became conscious again. Dharana on R.C. from morning [01.00 a.m.] – The red petals fall from the rose – tears of blood (Lunar – Yoni). The life blood, lunar tears or menstruam. It’s counterpart, the cross ‘weeps’ solar tears, or spermatozoan. Life’s essence: The redeeming force. Disturb the equilibrium, and both cry/weep alone. There can be no satisfaction of principles. This is Tetragrammaton – the self-dying, the self-rising – one must truly understand the formula of YHVH to comprehend this idea!
+ [Osiris/Christ/Hadit]
O [Isis/Mary/Nuit]
Saturday 7th July. 12.20 a.m. Open T. Recite ‘Hymn to Παν’ in astral form. Very good.
Sunday 8th July. 12.40 a.m. Open T. Recite ‘Hymn to Παν’ in astral form. It was spoken, not by me, but by a voice from within which echoed my own voice causing duality! The astral assumption was very good and my lower limbs disappeared, especially my right leg. There was no sensation whatsoever. I was unable to tell if my leg was raised or flat or bent or anything. There was no surface to the leg and no surface to the bed which touched the leg. Liber Samekh. 8.45 p.m. The Circle is drawn. I performed the Banishing Rituals of the Pentagram and the Hexagram. Asana, a position similar to the Bear, but incorporating the sign of Pan. Recite ‘Hymn to Παν’. Mantra (aloud): ‘Καιρε Σωτη Κοσμου, Ιω Παν, Ιω Παν.’ Then after approximately 10 minutes I performed the mantra silent, passive [internal]. I began to feel the excitement and enthusiasm as I banished every veil with the Pentagram, further and further, yet it was ‘nowhere’. The form of Παν sat within, his body enveloping my own earth body as if to conjoin with my astral body. My hands became electric – his face was a withered rag of debauchery; his fleecy thighs, thick with unutterable lusts. I ended the work at 9.20 p.m. and banished the circle etc. [Throughout the working I had been facing north, towards Boleskine].
Monday 9th July. 12.30 a.m. Open T. Recite ‘Hymn to Παν’. Astral rising on the planes. Mantra: ‘AUMGN’ Very good.
Friday 13th July. 12.30 a.m. 6.45 p.m. Invocation of Horus. 11.30 p.m. Open T. An astral working pertaining to the R.C.
Thursday 19th July. 11.45 p.m. astral work – the Ankh.
Friday 20th July. 12.30 a.m. Attempt an Invocation of Nuit but I was too exhausted.
Wednesday 8th July. 11.40 p.m. Open T. Attempt an invocation of Nuit but I somehow got lost in sleep. Although the waiting has paid off – strong again!
Thursday 9th August. I awoke feeling that something important had occurred.
Sunday 12th August. 01.00 a.m. Dharana on R.C. and invocation of Nuit using ‘Do what thou wilt’ mantra.
Tuesday 14th August. The adorations continue unbroken. I have also added the Thelemic ‘will’ in the last few days before eating, which I shall continue to do.
Wednesday 15th August. 12.10 a.m. Astral and ‘Do what thou wilt’ but very tired.
Friday 17th August. Just before the stroke of seven p.m. I confirmed my oath towards the Great Work to give every ounce of my being, and all that I have etc. Asana: 10.55-11.25 p.m. incorporating ‘Kundalini’ exercises in breathing. A strange tiredness helps to create the correct attitude!
Saturday 18th August. 01.00 a.m. R.C. in Ajna. Very strong, the astral is the strongest as yet! A magical day revealed since last night’s oath and the minor working of Sunday around midnight – my body has become tempered and strong, the light streams in ever widening circles etc. The Ordeal of Abandonment [five year period of silence in Magic – H.P.K.] of which I failed in one sense, though was triumphant in another – I gave every ounce of myself, I held back not one drop, all that I held dear and valued, I lost, many, by my own hands! Today, I thought of the magical weapons, I thought of the sword and its difficulty in attaining etc when lo and behold! I was stopped in my tracks and compelled to turn round and I saw row upon row of antique swords in a shop window [‘Blunderbuss Antiques, Marylebone High Street]. The strange thing was that it was only a five minute walk from my home, thus proving as if those secret chiefs were laughing at the fool that nothing is really too difficult to attain!
Sunday 19th August. 2.15 p.m. Dharana on the symbol of the triangle within the circle. I concentrate on the breath rising from the Mulhadara Chakra to the Ajna and back down again. I realise that asana and dharana cannot be done in bed for bed conjures sleep to tired eyes! 8.15 p.m. Asana: God position. End at 8.30 p.m.
Monday 20th August. Midnight: Open T. Invocation of Παν, in the sign of Παν, reciting the ‘Hymn to Παν’ – Παν in golden letters upon a doorway. A vision of complete love. The Yoke within the Egg; LVX penetrating beyond the flesh; beyond the shell etc.
Tuesday 21st August. The Vision of the Yoke etc. I was disturbed at 05.15 a.m. Later Soror Lylan – the sign of Παν! – a very successful invocation! Midnight: Dharana on the symbol of the Golden Dawn [Nuit]. Mantra: ‘Do what thou wilt’ etc. Partial success!
Wednesday 22nd August. Samadhi! 1.00 p.m. Sitting in W_____ S____. A very hot day reading ‘Cabalistic Dogma’ from Crowley’s ‘Collected Works’. I was suddenly between worlds and could not concentrate; I lost all sense of reality: Who am I? Where am I? Why am I? And when am I? There was no perception of time or place; no past, no present and no future, just complete annihilation. My only sense impression was of being a speck of dirt upon a sod of earth, speeding through space (the dark void) and nothing else. There was no ‘being’ only ‘going’ [Hadit]. It took some time for normal reality to return. 8.55 p.m. I read the 19th call from the 30 aethyrs and invoked the 30th aethyr: Tex. Sitting in the Dragon position. I had to abandon the work at 9.10 p.m. due to outside distractions.
Sunday 26th August. 03.00 a.m.
Vision: I was a third party in a rite concerning the IX degree – the sacrament
and the seed. The veil was rent and I tasted of the bitter fruit and almost
wretched. The sacrament contained minute specks of some hard material, which
could not be swallowed and spoilt its sweetness.
Monday 27th August. 01.20 a.m.
Dharana on Ankh with the mantra ‘Do what thou wilt’ etc. 2.35 p.m. Performed
the Star Ruby Ritual. 8.40 p.m. Asana: legs crossed. At 9.20 p.m. the ‘prana’
(intense sweating) began. Acute agony in right foot. I ended at 9.27 p.m.
Duration: 47 minutes.
Tuesday 28th August. 9.50 p.m. Opus 1. Asana: my position. I used the Elixer. Mantra: ‘Do what thou wilt’. I found myself in a field, robed, at the foot of a great, towering cross. The cross was of wood and it was rotten. At its centre there was a rose, and I knelt at its foot as it cried tears of blood upon the dusty earth, which was stained and clotted black with blood. The sky was a luminous bright blue and there were golden cornfields around. I entered the portal of Παν in the sign of the Enterer (Hadit) and rose up into the starry blue heavens. I suddenly found that I had stopped and was confronted by a green and blue-skinned naked woman, perfectly formed, yet strange; she was dark haired and lithe limbed. We rose into the air together in unison and her touch was beauty and her kiss was sweet – I did not resist unison, and she was as some beast upon me, snapping with wild ferocious jaws, taking of my flesh in ecstasy. I drew the pentagram of earth before her and she returned to her former self, then I made the sign of Harpocrates and she shrivelled unto nothing. But she had given me her name and it was TRINIA – her skin too terrible to behold, was wrought by madness, kist with gold! The vision ended at 10.10 p.m.
Hebrew: TRINIA=9+200+10+50+10+1=280 (or TRINIAH=285) or 400+200+10+50+10+1=680.
Greek: Τρινια=300+100+10+50+10+1=480 (or Τρινηα=300+100+10+50+8+1=478.
Wednesday 29th August. 11.35 p.m. Opus II. Asana: God position. Elixer. Invoke Fire (God names etc). Great progress in the rising on the planes [energised enthusiasm] but I had to abandon the work at 11.45 p.m. as I was disturbed. The asana became quite rigid in a short time and the astral release was swift.
Thursday 30th August. 9.45 p.m. Opus III. Asana: God position. Elixer. Read 19th call and the 29th aethyr – Rii. The asana was good and so was the breathing. Yet I must declare it a failure and ended at 10.05 p.m. I know why I failed, I was exhausted and felt it to be ‘time consuming’ – I have so much to do!
*The Passion and the Prayer: On 2nd November 1999 I moved into a new residence - Room 7, ___ Manchester Street, W1 London. It was a large room but strangely there was a locked door with the bed pushed against it. I went to bed in the early hours of the next day and at 3.20 a.m. was awoken by the sensation of hands around my legs, trying to remove me from the bed. As I lay there in fear I heard groaning noises coming from behind the locked door. I looked around and noticed certain items of mine had been moved, even 'placed' on the bed! [I had not consumed any alcohol]. I went back to bed and immediately had a vision of paper being blown around the room. Then the hands were upon me once more. I sense a presence near the bed, by the door and it was very strong. For some reason it wanted me off the bed, but I resisted, and it took all my will to do so. The door continued to make its un-earthly noises and several more times the hands were on me until finally I said a prayer aloud. The next day I left that room never to return again but I stayed in the room above for some years and every time I passed it on the stairs I had the sensation that something 'evil' was there.
About two years later a friend of mine who has 'mediumistic' ability told me she sensed a bad atmosphere around that room and on the stairs. I had not said a word to her yet she would not walk past the room on her own and said a death occurred in terrible circumstances in that room. The poem 'The Passion and the Prayer' is about that night and begins:
Tuesday 28th August. 9.50 p.m. Opus 1. Asana: my position. I used the Elixer. Mantra: ‘Do what thou wilt’. I found myself in a field, robed, at the foot of a great, towering cross. The cross was of wood and it was rotten. At its centre there was a rose, and I knelt at its foot as it cried tears of blood upon the dusty earth, which was stained and clotted black with blood. The sky was a luminous bright blue and there were golden cornfields around. I entered the portal of Παν in the sign of the Enterer (Hadit) and rose up into the starry blue heavens. I suddenly found that I had stopped and was confronted by a green and blue-skinned naked woman, perfectly formed, yet strange; she was dark haired and lithe limbed. We rose into the air together in unison and her touch was beauty and her kiss was sweet – I did not resist unison, and she was as some beast upon me, snapping with wild ferocious jaws, taking of my flesh in ecstasy. I drew the pentagram of earth before her and she returned to her former self, then I made the sign of Harpocrates and she shrivelled unto nothing. But she had given me her name and it was TRINIA – her skin too terrible to behold, was wrought by madness, kist with gold! The vision ended at 10.10 p.m.
Hebrew: TRINIA=9+200+10+50+10+1=280 (or TRINIAH=285) or 400+200+10+50+10+1=680.
Greek: Τρινια=300+100+10+50+10+1=480 (or Τρινηα=300+100+10+50+8+1=478.
Wednesday 29th August. 11.35 p.m. Opus II. Asana: God position. Elixer. Invoke Fire (God names etc). Great progress in the rising on the planes [energised enthusiasm] but I had to abandon the work at 11.45 p.m. as I was disturbed. The asana became quite rigid in a short time and the astral release was swift.
Thursday 30th August. 9.45 p.m. Opus III. Asana: God position. Elixer. Read 19th call and the 29th aethyr – Rii. The asana was good and so was the breathing. Yet I must declare it a failure and ended at 10.05 p.m. I know why I failed, I was exhausted and felt it to be ‘time consuming’ – I have so much to do!
*The Passion and the Prayer: On 2nd November 1999 I moved into a new residence - Room 7, ___ Manchester Street, W1 London. It was a large room but strangely there was a locked door with the bed pushed against it. I went to bed in the early hours of the next day and at 3.20 a.m. was awoken by the sensation of hands around my legs, trying to remove me from the bed. As I lay there in fear I heard groaning noises coming from behind the locked door. I looked around and noticed certain items of mine had been moved, even 'placed' on the bed! [I had not consumed any alcohol]. I went back to bed and immediately had a vision of paper being blown around the room. Then the hands were upon me once more. I sense a presence near the bed, by the door and it was very strong. For some reason it wanted me off the bed, but I resisted, and it took all my will to do so. The door continued to make its un-earthly noises and several more times the hands were on me until finally I said a prayer aloud. The next day I left that room never to return again but I stayed in the room above for some years and every time I passed it on the stairs I had the sensation that something 'evil' was there.
About two years later a friend of mine who has 'mediumistic' ability told me she sensed a bad atmosphere around that room and on the stairs. I had not said a word to her yet she would not walk past the room on her own and said a death occurred in terrible circumstances in that room. The poem 'The Passion and the Prayer' is about that night and begins:
What occupant beats beside a
lover's brain?
Who hears the whispers of the
past?
It is the old world that comes
again
With dreams, softly as a ghost.
Love is the Law, love under will.
THE MAGIC BOOK WORM
REVIEWS BY BARRY VAN-ASTEN
White Stains – by Aleister Crowley.
First published in November 1898 in Amsterdam by the popular English publisher of erotic literature Leonard Charles Smithers (1861-1907) and printed by Binger brothers, ‘White Stains’ remains a little known work of erotica outside of Crowley aficionados’. At the time of its publication (only 100 copies were printed, most of which were destroyed in 1924 by British Customs) Crowley was just twenty-three years old with the world before him as a man of quite a significant inheritance. Because of the book’s content, Crowley had to issue ‘White Stains’ or the ‘literary remains’ under the authorship of George Archibald Bishop, a ‘Neuro-path of the Second Empire’. The name ‘Bishop’ is a reference to Crowley’s detested Uncle Tom Bishop, a devout member of the Plymouth Brethren, who looked after young ‘Alick’ (Crowley) when his father Edward died in 1887.
‘White Stains’ was considered ‘the filthiest in the English language’ by Mr Peter Fryer, an authority on erotica (Confessions. p.16), and the preface to the book leaves us with no doubt as to the orgiastic excess and debaucheries we are about to encounter: ‘The Editor hopes that Mental Pathologists, for whose eyes alone this treatise is destined will spare no precautions to prevent it falling into other hands.’
Many of the poems, which appear to be imitations of Baudelaire, Rimbaud and his beloved Swinburne, were written while Crowley was an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge (1895-1898) and relate to some of his sexual escapades (though some are clearly products of a fertile imagination) during his vacations in Berlin, St Petersburg, Switzerland and Stockholm:
‘What time for language, when our kisses flow
Eloquent, warm, as words are cold and weak? –
Or now – Ah! sweetheart, even were it so
We could not speak!’ [At Stockholm]
And there are tender moments with his lover, Herbert Charles Jerome Pollitt (1871-1942):
‘His breath as hot and quick as fame;
To kiss him and to clasp him tight;
This is my joy without a name,
A strong man’s love is my delight.’ [A Ballad of Passive Paederasty]
At its publication, Crowley was taking his first steps into the occult when he became a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in London on 18th November 1898. White Stains is Crowley’s reaction to the opinions of the Austrian sexologist Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebbing (1840-1902) in his ‘Psychpathia Sexualis’ of 1893. In it he claims that all sexual perversions and abnormalities are the result of illness and disease – Crowley disagrees, saying that they are ‘magical affirmations of perfectly intelligible points of view’, they are in fact, acts of sexual magic.
The collection of poems, vile and sublime, goes beyond the bounds of common decency into a hellish nightmare in which ‘the mysteries of death become more and more an obsession, and he is flung headlong into Sadism, Necrophilia, all the maddest, fiercest vices that the mind of fiends ever brought up from the pit’. [Preface]. There is a romance in disgust and a childish fascination with fellatio, sodomy, urophagia, cunnilingus, lesbianism, analingus, bestiality, sado-masochism, coprophagia, venereal disease, blood lust and necrophilia (‘Yea, thou art dead. Thy buttocks now / Are swan-soft, and thou sweatest not’.); in fact, the book contains all the pleasurable pursuits and virtuous acts in which the ordinary Englishman excels!
‘Let my fond lips but drink thy golden wine,
My bright-eyed Arab, only let me eat
The rich brown globes of sacramental meat
Steaming and firm, hot from their home divine’. [Go into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in]
‘I yield him place: his ravening teeth
Cling hard to her – he buries him
Insane and furious in the sheath
She opens for him – wide and dim
My mouth is amorous beneath’. [With Dog and Dame]
Despite the nature of the book, Crowley remained insistent that he wrote the book with a pure heart: ‘my essential spirituality is made manifest by yet another publication, which stands as a testimony of my praeterhuman innocence. The book is called white stains and is commonly quoted by my admirers as evidence of my addiction to every kind of unmentionable vice. Asses! It is, indeed, technically, an obscene book, and yet the fact that I wrote it proves the purity of my heart and mind in the most extraordinary fashion’. (Confessions. p. 139).
And the perpetrator of these crimes: a poet, who descends into madness and murder through his diabolical debaucheries! Crowley often used the device of an ‘imagined author’ to pin his sexual abominations upon and to use as a mouthpiece for his blasphemies. In White Stains, he ‘invented a poet who went wrong, who began with normal and innocent enthusiasms, and gradually developed various vices. He ends by being stricken with disease and madness, culminating in murder. In his poems he describes his downfall, always explaining the psychology of each act. The conclusion of the book might therefore be approved in any Sunday School’. (Confessions. p. 139).
Amongst the poems is one titled ‘A Ballad of Choosing’ and it shows the poet (Crowley) at a spiritual crossroads, rejecting Christ and ‘the vileness of his plea’. In ‘At Kiel’ he wonders ‘What is Eternity, seeing we hold this hour / For all the lusts and luxuries of shame?’ In ‘La Juive’ the poet imagines copulating with Christ’s spear wound, which ‘lay open for a lover’s prize – I violate the Crucified!’ The poet is a man who has ‘sold soul and body to Satan for sheer love of sin, whose mere lusts of perversion is so intense that it seems to absorb every other emotion and interest’. (Preface).
But Crowley is no Satanist; he is a man rebelling at society and howling at Victorian propriety, prejudice and Christian morals, in the only way his youthful self knew how – through his poetry. His whole life was about not conforming, breaking barriers and taboos; freeing the soul from restrictions. He saw only beauty in strength and despised weakness. In White Stains, Crowley has put into print what most of us have thought about at some time or another and for that he should be commended!
The Winged Beetle – by Aleister Crowley.
First printed in 1910 by Turnbull & Spears of London in 350 numbered copies, ‘The Winged Beetle’ contains some of the finest poetry Crowley ever wrote. The book is dedicated to his great friend John Frederick Charles Fuller (1876-1966) who also designed the original cover; in fact, each of the poems are dedicated to persons known to Crowley such as Victor Neuburg, Frank Harris, Cecil Jones, Norman Mudd, Kathleen Bruce, Allen Bennett, Crowley’s wife Rose and even his mother! The poems cover a wide range of subjects and emotions and even contain biographical themes:
‘He had crucified a toad
In the basilisk abode,
Muttering the Runes averse
Mad with many a mocking curse’. [The Wizard Way. Dedicated to J.F.C. Fuller]
‘In the Years of the Primal course, in
the dawn of terrestrial birth,
Man mastered the mammoth and horse;
and Man was the Lord of the Earth.’ [The Pentagram. Dedicated to George Raffalovich]
But of all the poems perhaps the most heartfelt has to be ‘Rosa Decidua’ dedicated to Lord Salvesen, the judge who presided at Crowley’s trial for divorce after the death of their child. A copy of the poem was sent to the judge – ‘This poem is, perhaps, my high-water mark in realism. It reveals my human self as I had never even attempted to do. I trace my agony through every writhe.’ [The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. P. 535]
‘This is no tragedy of little tears.
My brain is hard and cold; there is no beat
Of its blood; there is no heat
Of sacred fire upon my lips to sing.
My heart is dead; I say that name thrice over;
Rose! – Rose! – Rose! – ‘
And again:
‘Who asks me for my tears?
She flings the body of our sweet dead child
Into my face with hell’s own epitaph,
Profanes that shrine
Of infinite love and infinite loss,
My empty shrine, the one shrine undefiled,
My one close-clasped cross –
And hers as much as mine!’
This book will surprise many readers who are coming to Crowley’s poetry for the first time and it may even ignite a life-long interest and passion for the perplexing, yet often misunderstood enigma – Aleister Crowley! Astounding!
The Cloud upon the Sanctuary – by Karl von Eckartshausen (translated by Isabelle de Steiger).
‘The Cloud upon the Sanctuary’ is a translation of the German mystic Karl von Eckartshausen’s (1752-1813) ‘Der Wolke vor dem Heiligthume’ of 1802. It was translated and published as a small book in 1896 by the English painter, writer and occultist, Madam Issabelle de Steiger (1836-1927). de Steiger was interested in Spiritualism and in 1878 she joined the Theosophical Society; ten years later she became a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The first publication featured a preface by the Scottish writer John William Brodie-Innes (1848-1923) who was also a leading member of the Golden Dawn in Scotland.
The book is ‘delivered’ to us in six letters and it speaks of the ‘Council of Light’, a hidden sect of initiates, or ‘Great White Brotherhood’ of enlightened ones; mystics who watch over humanity and guide it spiritually. The book was certainly a large influence in the life of the occultist Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) and it is beautifully written. But why should such a curious little book on Christian mysticism be so seductive to practitioners of the occult? We must remember that Eckartshausen wrote the book at a time when ‘Christianity’ was considered to be a ‘major religion’ and it was the accepted belief system for many people who still lived under the fear of damnation through the committing of sins; a ‘religion’ whose focus was to keep the ‘lower classes’ in order (and preferably un-educated) and to keep the ‘church’ in business!
There are moments of real enlightenment but for all its hints at an esoteric school of adepts I have to say I found the book disappointing. The Cloud upon the Sanctuary – the storm still rages!
The Green Garland – by Victor B. Neuburg.
The Green Garland published in 1908 is the first collection of poems to appear by the poet and occultist Victor Benjamin Neuburg (1883-1940). The poems, most of which first appeared in the ‘Agnostic Journal’ to which Victor contributed, have a rich lyrical quality to their rhythms and his verse throbs with all the vibrant energy and beauty of youth, joyous youth as he sings of nature and the ancient gods:
‘To-night, the wind shall play among the trees,
To-night, still waters shall reflect the sky,
To-night, the moonlight over wide strech’d seas
Shall rouse the slumb’rous earth with melody.’ [III. The Garden of Youth]
Other poems in the volume include: ‘The First Poet’, ‘The Eagle and the Serpent’, ‘Ballade of the Daisy’, ‘Carmen Triumphans’,’A Song of the Promise of Dawn’, ‘A Leaf from Walt Whitman’, and ‘Young Summer’. In ‘To Shelley’, Victor pays homage to the beautiful soul of the poet:
‘Brother and bard, thy voice’s thunder
Changed the grey sky of the past to white:
Still we listen in pain and wonder –
Still we weep in our hearts’ delight
When the golden sun at eve goes under
The earth’s red rim at the touch of Night.’
Many of the poems have a strong and positive mood with a typically romantic view of life but within some poems lurks the loathsome figure of death, as in ‘The Recall’ and in ‘The Dream’. Neuburg shows great potential as a poet in this first collection and who can fail to be moved by his vision of an optimistic future:
‘With arms extended to the stars, a song
Of freedom floats over the eager sea: ‘
’The dawn approaches, though the night
was long!’’ [A Song of Freedom.]
Sensational!
The Triumph of Pan – by Victor B. Neuburg.
First published by The Equinox, London in 1910, ‘The Triumph of Pan’ is the second collection of poetry by Victor Neuburg (1883-1940). Neuburg was interested in the occult and he was under the influence of a fellow Trinity College, Cambridge man eight years his senior named Edward Alexander Crowley (1875-1947). Crowley was securing a name for himself as a poet, mountaineer and an occultist and he had met the twenty-three year old Neuburg at Cambridge in 1906. The young Victor became infatuated by the older poet who lavished praise and criticism upon Neuburg’s poems, and soon the two were lovers:
‘Sweet wizard, in whose footsteps I have trod
Unto the shrine of the most obscene god.’ [ The Romance of Olivia Vane. II.]
Seven of the poems in the collection are reprinted from other periodicals – ‘The Creation of Eve’, ‘A Lost Spirit’ and ‘The Cauldron’ are from the Theosophical Review; ‘An Origin’, ‘The Coming of Apollo’, ‘The Lost Shepherd’ and ‘The Lonely Bride’ are from The Equinox, Crowley’s biannual journal of magical knowledge, stories, poems and reviews that was published at the spring and autumn equinox beginning in 1909 and running for ten issues in volume one.
All the poems are dedicated to friends of the poet, such as Aleister Crowley, Norman Mudd, George Raffalovich, Ethel Archer, J.F.C. Fuller, Wilfred Merton, G.M. Marston and Austin Osman Spare etc. The title poem ‘The Triumph of Pan’ gives us an image of pagan beauty throughout its forty-four verses:
‘We found sleeping; yea, the Panic revel
Had drawn his spirit far;
Asleep, he bore the aspect of a devil;
Awake, the morning star
Flashed in his eyes; oh, scan
The vision of great Pan;
Thrust tongue and limbs against his pulsing side,
And thou shalt know the dayspring as a bride!’ [The Triumph of Pan. XIII]
Other poems include: ‘Sleep in the Hills’, ‘Selene’, ‘The Thief of Time’, ‘Osiris’, ‘Gipsy Tom’, ‘Under Magdalene Bridge’, ‘Music Pictures’, ‘Sigurd’s Songs’, ‘A Night Piece’ and the sensuous love lyrics of ‘The Romance of Olivia Vane’, a passionate poem to his lover ‘Olivia Vane’ (Crowley) in twenty-two verses. Together they have dwelt among the darkness and performed the rites of magic:
‘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.’ [The Romance of Olivia Vane. IV.]
But it is love, eternal that is declared by the young poet to his ‘sweet wizard’:
‘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.’ [The Romance of Olivia Vane. XIX.]
With ‘The Triumph of Pan’, Neuburg has surpassed his previous collection of 1908 ‘The Green Garland’ and never again will he achieve the mesmerising lyrical quality that he does under the genius of his magical lover, Aleister Crowley!
‘Raise high the Paean of the God of Man!
Io Triumphe! Hail to the new-born Pan!’ [The Triumph of Pan. XLIV.]
PEGAMINA
By BARRY VAN-ASTEN
PART NINE
WHEN THE SEA ROARS
As the sun was setting, Pegamina found herself in a strange wood, and the further into the wood she wandered, the more the trees seemed to huddle together as if they were afraid of something more than the darkness. Deeper she went and darker it grew, and all about her, the sound of the night began to sing. It was the woods of her dreams where she became lost and afraid and where nothing seemed to sleep; where the hoot of an owl is the cry of some forsaken ghost, and a disturbance in the undergrowth is the tread of some nightmarish phantom. All these fears seemed to crowd upon her sense as the last rays of the sun disappeared below the trees.
Night was now upon her and a heavy mist was beginning to settle in the woods. And for a moment, Pegamina stood still and listened to the sound of the wood as it stretched and yawned before her. And as she listened, she heard the faint sound of someone singing, far away in the distance. She walked on and the song grew sad and long and loud, until she could hear plainly, the words that were sung by a shrill voice, drifting through the wood:
‘Down below the waves that keep
My restless heart so incomplete;
Wet with kisses from the deep:
Swim with monster fuel, my sweet,
Through the blue energy of aqua-sleep;
Drawn by darkness – kick your feet!
In submerged sensuality, she
Is leaving her dread decline,
Under the rolling, galleon-haunted sea
By the light of an incandescent shrine;
Under the water’s dorsal-filled beauty,
Drawn by this great love of mine!
Let the pearly chambers of your heart be still:
I am alive and caressing in the liquid blue,
Where the dead dance by a dim-lit oracle,
And where my love waits to pull you through!
Kiss the dark reaches with lips soft and gentle
And by your dreams, I’ll be there too!’
It seemed like the voice of an angel, calling out into the sad and lonely wilderness, and Pegamina took some comfort in this. As she walked on, under the dense, moonlit trees, she heard the sound of crying, not too far away, and it wasn’t long before she found herself standing before a man with his hands against his face, crying into the darkness. In fact he was sobbing so loud that he didn’t seem to notice Pegamina approaching at all.
‘Why are you crying?’ she asked. And the man answered:
‘When the sea roars its song of eternity... these woods are my fathom-filled beauty!’ Pegamina didn’t quite understand what he meant, but she decided to introduce herself but the man of the woods did not answer.
‘Tell me please, what makes you so unhappy?’ she said.
‘Can you not see’ replied the man ‘that I have been tied to this tree and the woods are drowning me... drowning me...!’
‘But who tied you to the tree?’
‘It was my brother’ he said tearfully, ‘Lord Magnus Doom and I am sick of sorrow’s suffering!’
‘Why did he do such a thing, he is your brother, does he not love you?’
‘Magnus, my young brother owns this land including the grove of Lamentation in which I am an eternal prisoner, and which by right was my inheritance!’
‘You mean he stole it from you?’
‘He is my father’s son and he is a noble one!’ and he laughed as if he were possessed by some streak of madness.
‘I shall untie you’ Pegamina said reaching for the rope.
‘It is no use I’m afraid, it is quite impossible. You see, I cannot live and I cannot die’. And Pegamina took the rope in her hands, shaking it, pulling it and even biting it, but it was no good, the rope could not be undone!
‘You see, it is no ordinary rope, but thank you for trying’ he said, hanging his head.
‘Can’t the rope be cut in some way?’ Pegamina asked.
‘Not even with the sharpest axe!’ he replied.
‘Then I don’t know what to do!’ And she sighed and sat down beside the man’s feet, looking thoughtful. A long time seemed to elapse and neither of them said a word. Pegamina looked up into the man’s eyes and could see that he was far away in his thoughts.
‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Pegamina.
‘I’m not thinking of anything, I’m looking!’
‘Looking at what?’ said Pegamina.
‘At the sea, of course, for we are so much paper in the wind!’ he replied. And Pegamina looked about her but she could only see the black, crooked shapes of trees.
‘I can’t see the sea!’ she said, feeling a little puzzled.
‘That’s because you don’t look!’ And Pegamina looked again, but she still saw nothing of the sea!
‘I don’t believe you really can see the sea!’ she said.
‘I see it all the time; it is the only thing I do see!’
Pegamina watched the man for a few moments as he stared into the distance, beyond the grove and beyond the hills and the valleys where, perhaps, he really could see the sea.
‘I have dreamt of the sea too!’ she said.
‘What is dreamt?’ the man asked.
‘Dreamt means to dream, when one is asleep’ she answered.
‘And what is asleep?’ he asked.
‘Sleep is when one closes one’s eyes to dream!’
‘What nonsense! Close one’s eyes to dream! How can one see the sea with one’s eyes closed?’
‘In one’s head, of course!’ she said sharply.
‘The sea, in a head? How absurd!’
‘It’s not absurd, it’s imagination!’
Then they both remained silent until the man said:
‘How can you understand? Knowledge, that’s the tragedy. It’s not powerful at all, it’s dangerous and terribly lonely and we are what we are!’
Pegamina thought the man was very ungrateful; after all, she had tried to undo the rope for him, but she also felt deeply sorry for him, and so she did not speak another word. The grove grew darker and darker, and as Pegamina felt the veil of sleep overcome her, she stretched out and lay before the man and closed her eyes to dream.
During the night, she often opened her eyes to look at the pitiful face above her, white in the moonlight, staring into the darkness, and his eyes like two shiny pearls. For although she was tired she found it somewhat difficult to sleep, what with the noise of the woods and the man sighing above her! Yet she was comforted by the thought that she wasn’t alone. She looked up into the night sky and saw all the bright stars twinkling and she wondered if her little friend, the star, had returned home safely and was twinkling for her. In fact all manner of different thoughts seemed to fill her mind; she even tried to remember the song about the butterfly: ‘O secret of symphony, I know its heart...’ but she fell fast asleep.
The next morning, as she awoke, she opened her eyes to the sad face of the man tied to the tree and greeted him:
‘Good morning! And how is the sea today?’
‘All is calm now but the waves were as high as the clouds during the night, as they crashed together like thunder, as if to say “that is all! That is all!”’
‘I think the sea can be very cruel!’ Pegamina said.
‘When the sea roars its song of eternity... it will find you! All-knowing and all-powerful! And here the man began to sing:
‘O to be on some moonlit isle
Where I can watch the sea;
To watch the rising and falling waves
As they rise and fall in me!
To watch the tall ships passing by
Ruled by the laws of the sea,
With the wind in their sails
As the water-world wails
Like fathoms, restless in me!
And gently, gently, ever so gently
Into the blue waves of the sea;
Where the salt-born soul
Is measured by the roll
Of the sea, of the sea, of the sea!’
Then suddenly, he closed his eyes and sang no more. And his body that had become so much a part of the tree fell to the ground as the rope broke, setting him free. And a smile seemed to cross his lips, but it was too late, for he was dead and Pegamina knew that he was dreaming of the sea as she wept uncontrollable tears!
When the
sea roars...
