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THE EQUINOX Vol. I. No. III 1st part
October 22, 1989 e.v. key entry and June 25, 1990 e.v. first proof reading
against the 1st edition done by Bill Heidrick, T.G. of O.T.O.
(further proof reading desirable)
(c) O.T.O. disk 1 of 3
This is the XYWrite word processor version. To print, use substitution tables
from printer drivers 3G10X.PRN or 3G10X-L.PRN, February 1990 e.v. revision or
later (new graphics symbols used this time). A 7-bit ASCII version is also
available.
O.T.O.
P.O.Box 430
Fairfax, CA 94930
USA
(415) 454-5176 ---- Messages only.
Pages in the original are marked thus at the bottom: {page number}
Comments and descriptions are also set off by curly brackets {}
Comments and notes not in the original are identified with the initials of the
source: AC note = Crowley note. WEH note = Bill Heidrick note, etc.
Descriptions of illustrations are not so identified, but are simply in curly
brackets.
(Addresses and invitations below are not current but copied from the original
text of the early part of the 20th century)
************************************************************************
THE EQUINOX
No. IV. will contain in its 400 pages:
VARIOUS OFFICIAL INSTRUCTION of the A.'. A.'.
THE ELEMENTAL CALLS OF KEYS, WITH THE
GREAT WATCH TOWERS OF THE UNI-
VERSE and their explanation. A complete treatise, fully
illustrated, upon the Spirits of the Elements, their names and
offices, with the method of calling them forth and controlling
them. With an account of The Heptarchical Mystery, The
Thirty Aethyrs or Aires with "The Vision and the Voice," being
the Cries of the Angels of the Aethyrs, a revelation of the highest
truths pertaining to the grade of Magister Templi, and many
other matters. Fully illustrated.
THE CONTINUATION OF THE HERB DAN-
GEROUS. Selections from H. G. Ludlow, "the Hashish-
Eater."
MR. TODD: A Morality, by the author of "Rosa Mundi."
THE DAUGHTER OF THE HORSELEECH, by
ETHEL RAMSAY.
THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON THE KING.
[Continuation.
FRATER P.'S EXPERIENCES IN THE EAST. A
complete account of the various kinds of Yoga.
DIANA OF THE INLET. By KATHERINE S. PRITCHARD.
Fully Illustrated.
ACROSS THE GULF: An adept's memory of his incarnation
in Egypt under the 26th dynasty; with an account of the Passing
of the Equinox of Isis.
&c. &c. &c.
"To be obtained of the"
THE EQUINOX, 15 Tavistock Street, W.C.
"And through all Booksellers"
-----------------------
"Crown 8vo, Scarlet Buckram, pp. 64."
This Edition strictly limited to 500 Copies.
PRICE 10s
A.'. A.'.
PUBLICATION IN CLASS B.
--------
BOOK
777
THIS book contains in concise tabulated form a comparative view of all the
symbols of the great religions of the world; the perfect attributions of the
Taro, so long kept secret by the Rosicrucians, are now for the first time
published; also the complete secret magical correspondences of the G.'.
D.'. and R. R. et A. C. It forms, in short, a complete magical and
philosophical dictionary; a key to all religions and to all practical occult
working.
For the first time Western and Qabalistic symbols have been harmonized
with those of Hinduism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Taoism, &c. By a glance at
the Tables, anybody conversant with any one system can understand perfectly
all others.
The "Occult Review" says:
"Despite its cumbrous sub-title and high price per page, this work has only
to come under the notice o {sic} the right people to be sure of a ready sale.
In its author's words, it represents 'an attempt to systematise alike the data
of mysticism and the results of comparative religion,' and so far as any book
can succeed in such an attempt, this book does succeed; that is to say, it
condenses in some sixty pages as much information as many an intelligent
reader at the Museum has been able to collect in years. The book proper
consists of a Table of 'Correspondences,' and is, in fact, an attempt to
reduce to a common denominator the symbolism of as many religious and magical
systems as the author is acquainted with. The denominator chosen is
necessarily a large one, as the author's object is to reconcile systems which
divide all things into 3, 7, 10, 12, as the case may be. Since our expression
'common denominator' is used in a figurative and not in a strictly
mathematical sense, the task is less complex than appears at first sight, and
the 32 Paths of the Sepher Yetzirah, or Book of Formation of the Qabalah,
provide a convenient scale. These 32 Paths are attributed by the Qabalists to
the 10 Sephiroth, or Emanations of Deity, and to the 22 letters of the Hebrew
alphabet, which are again subdivided into 3 mother letters, 7 double letters,
and 12 simple letters. On this basis, that of the Qabalistic 'Tree of Life,'
as a certain arrangement of the Sephiroth and 22 remaining Paths connecting
them is termed, the author has constructed no less than 183 tables.
"The Qabalistic information is very full, and there are tables of Egyptian
and Hindu deities, as well as of colours, perfumes, plants, stones, and
animals. The information concerning the tarot and geomancy exceeds that to be
found in some treatises devoted exclusively to those subjects. The author
appears to be acquainted with Chinese, Arabic, and other classic texts. Here
your reviewer is unable to follow him, but his Hebrew does credit alike to him
and to his printer. Among several hundred words, mostly proper names, we
found and marked a few misprints, but subsequently discovered each one of them
in a printed table of errata, which we had overlooked. When one remembers the
misprints in 'Agrippa' and the fact that the ordinary Hebrew compositor and
reader is no more fitted for this task than a boy cognisant of no more than
the shapes of the Hebrew letters, one wonders how many proofs there were and
what the printer's bill was. A knowledge of the Hebrew alphabet and the
Qabalistic Tree of Life is all that is needed to lay open to the reader the
enormous mass of information contained in this book. The 'Alphabet of
Mysticism,' as the author says ___ several alphabets we should prefer to say
___ is here. Much that has been jealously and foolishly kept secret in the
past is here, but though our author has secured for his work the "imprimatur" of
some body with the mysterious title of the A.'. A.'., and though he remains
himself anonymous, he appears to be no mystery-monger. Obviously he is widely
read, but he makes no pretence that he has secrets to reveal. On the
contrary, he says, 'an indicible arcanum is an arcanum which "cannot" be
revealed.' The writer of that sentence has learned at least one fact not to
be learned from books.
"G.C.J."
RIDER'S LIBRARY OF ALCHEMICAL PHILOSOPHY
THE HERMETIC AND ALCHEMICAL WRITINGS OF AUREOLUS PHILIPPUS THEOPHRASTUS
BOMBAST OF HOHENHEIM, CALLED PARACELSUS THE GREAT, now for the first time
translated into English. Edited with a Biographical Preface, Elucidatory
notes, and a copious Hermetic Vocabulary and Index, by ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE.
In Two Volumes, Dark Red Cloth, medium 4to, gilt tops, 25s. net. Vol. I.,
394 pp.; Vol. II., 396 pp.
THE TURBA PHILOSOPHORUM, or Assembly of the Sages. An Ancient Alchemical
Treatise, with the chief Readings of the Shorter Codex, Parallels from
Greek Alchemists, and Explanations of obscure terms. Translated, with
Introduction and Notes, by A.E. WAITE. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net.
A great symposium or debate of the Adepts assembled in convocation. The
work ranks next to Gober as a fountain-head of alchemy in Western Europe. It
reflects the earliest Byzantine, Syrian and Arabian writers. This famous work
is accorded the highest place among the works of Alchemical Philosophy which
are available for the students in the English language.
THE NEW PEARL OF GREAT PRICE. the Treatise of Bonus concerning the Treasure
of the Philosopher's Stone. Translated from the Latin. Edited by A. E.
WAITE. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net.
One of the classics of alchemy, with a very curious account, accompanied by
emblematical figures showing the generation and birth of metals, the death of
those that are base and their resurrection in the prefect forms of gold and
silver.
A GOLDEN AND BLESSED CASKET OF NATURE'S MARVELS. BY BENEDICTUS FIGULUS. With
a Life of the Author. Edited by A. E. WAITE. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net.
A collection of short treatises by various authors belonging to the school
of Paracelsus, dealing with the mystery of the Philosopher's Stone, the
revelation of Hermes, the great work of the Tincture, the glorious antidote of
Potable Gold. Benedictus Figulus connects by imputation with the early
Rosicrucians.
THE TRIUMPHAL CHARIOT OF ANTIMONY. BY BASIL VALENTINE. Translated from the
Latin, including the Commentary of Kerckringius, and Biographical and
Critical Introduction. Edited by A. E. WAITE. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net.
A valuable treatise by one who is reputed a great master of alchemical art.
It connects practical chemistry with the occult theory of transmutation. The
antimonial Fire-Stone is said to cure diseases in man and to remove the
imperfection of metals.
THE ALCHEMICAL WRITINGS OF EDWARD KELLY. From the Latin Edition of 1676.
With a Biographical Introduction, an Account of Kelly's relations with Dr.
Dee, and a transcript of the "Book of St. Dunstan." Edited by A. E. WAITE.
Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net.
A methodised summary of the best Hermetic philosophers, including a
discourse on Terrestrial Astronomy, in which the planets are replaced by
metals, and instead of an account of stellar influences we have the laws
governing metallic conversion.
YOUR FORTUNE IN YOUR NAME, OR KABALISTIC ASTROLOGY. New edition, largely
revised. Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, 96 pp., 2s. 6d. net. By "SEPHARIAL."
A MANUAL OF CARTOMANCY, Fortune-Telling and Occult divination, including the
Oracle of Human Destiny, Cagliostro's Mystic Alphabet of the Magi, &c. &c.
Fourth edition, greatly enlarged and revised, by GRAND ORIENT. Crown 8vo,
cloth gilt, 252 pp., 2s. 6d. net.
COLLECTANEA CHEMICA. Being certain Select Treatises on Alchemy and Hermetic
medicine. By EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES, &c. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. net.
CONTENTS ___ The Secret of the Immortal Liquor called Alkahest ___ Aurum
Potabile ___ The Admirable Efficacy of the True Oil of Sulphur Fire ___ The
Stone of the Philosophers ___ The Bosom Book of Sir George Ripley ___ The
Preparation of the Sophic Mercury.
THE HERMETIC MUSEUM, Restored and Enlarged: most faithfully instructing all
disciples of the Sopho-Spagyric art how that greatest and truest medicine
of the Philosopher's Stone may be found and held. Now first done into
English from the Latin original published at Frankfort in the year 1678.
Containing 22 celebrated alchemical tracts. Translated from the Latin and
edited by A. E. WAITE. With numerous most interesting engravings. Fcap.
quarto, 2 vols. Very scarce, 35s.
AZOTH, or The Star in the East. A New Light of Mysticism. By ARTHUR EDWARD
WAITE. Imperial 8vo, pp. xvi + 239. Original edition in special binding.
Price 5s.
A presentation of mystic doctrine and symbolism in the light of Christian
Teaching and Hermetic philosophy; evolution in the Light of Mysticism; the way
of attainment; and the interior life from the mystic standpoint.
"Note. ___ Many old books on Astrology and Alchemical Science are also kept"
"in stock. Write for latest new and second-hand catalogues."
____________________
WILLIAM RIDER & SON, Ltd., 164 Aldersgate St., London. E.C.
The Star in the West
BY
CAPTAIN J. F. C. FULLER
" ""FOURTH LARGE EDITION NOW IN PREPARATION"
THROUGH THE EQUINOX AND ALL BOOKSELLERS
SIX SHILLINGS NET
-------------------------------------
A highly original study of morals and
religion by a new writer, who is as
entertaining as the average novelist is
dull. Nowadays human thought has
taken a brighter place in the creation:
our emotions are weary of bad baronets
and stolen wills; they are now only
excited by spiritual crises, catastrophes of
the reason, triumphs of the intelligence.
In these fields Captain Fuller is a master
dramatist.
-------------------------------------
<20>10 REWARD
Ten Pounds ("<22>"10) will be paid by the Proprietors of THE EQUINOX
for a copy of the Journal containing the following passage, which has
been anonymously sent to this office, or for such information as may
enable them to trace the perpetrators.
(TORN EDGE)
the circumstances.
_________________
Cox, Box, Equinox,
McGregors are coming to Town;
Some in rags, and some on jags,
And the Swami upside down.
_________________
Cran, Cran, McGregor's man
Served a writ, and away he ran.
_________________
Cadbury Jones!
Stop your groans,
And open the Family Bible,
I fancy cocoa
Would tint your boko
Less than Criminal Libel.
_________________
What did Waistcott Wynn?
Anyway, he lost his shirt.
_________________
See-Saw, Bernard Shaw
Sold his beef to live upon straw.
Wasn't he a thousand miles
From sense when he went to Eustace Miles?
_________________
Jagmatite said (TORN EDGE)
The Back contains some account of a football match played on some
Saturday in January, apparently in Lancashire. The envelope was
addressed in female script, and bears postmark "Rock Ferry."
Besides the senseless vulgarity and scurrility of this disgusting
stuff, it implies the false and malicious statement that a writ has
been served upon us; and we shall proceed according to law, if we can
trace the offenders.
A
GREEN GARLAND
By
V. B. NEUBURG
Green paper cover. 1s. 6d. net
_______________
"As far as the verse is concerned there is in this volume something more
than mere promise; the performance is at times remarkable; there is beauty not
only of thought and invention ___ and the invention is of a positive kind ___
but also of expression and rhythm. There is a lilt in Mr. Neuburg's poems; he
has the impulse to sing, and makes his readers feel that impulse."
"The Morning Post", May 21, 1908.
"There is a certain given power in some of the imaginings concerning
death, as 'The Dream' and 'the Recall,' and any reader with a liking for verse
of an unconventional character will find several pieces after his taste."
"The Daily Telegraph", May 29, 1908.
"Here is a poet of promise." ___ "The Daily Chronicle", May 13, 1908.
"It is not often that energy and poetic feeling are united so happily as
in this little book." ___ "The Morning Leader", July 10, 1908.
There is promise and some fine lines in these verses."
"The Times", July 11, 1908.
___________________
" ""To be obtained of"
"THE YOUNG CAMBRIDGE PRESS,"
4 MILL STREET, BEDFORD
London: PROBSTHAIN & CO. And all Booksellers.
"This page is reserved for Official Pronouncements by the Chancellor"
" of the A".'." A".'.]
Persons wishing for information, assistance, further
interpretation, etc., are requested to communicate with
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE A.'. A.'.
c/o THE EQUINOX,
124 Victoria Street,
S.W.
Telephone 3210 VICTORIA,
or to call at that address by appointment. A representative
will be there to meet them.
----------------------
Probationers are reminded that the object of Probations
and Ordeals is one: namely, to select Adepts. But the
method appears twofold: (i) to fortify the fit; (ii) to
eliminate the unfit.
----------------------
The Chancellor of the A.'. A.'. wishes to announce that
those whom he represents are only responsible for the
Publications on which their Imprimatur is set; the rest of
THE EQUINOX is edited as literary and commercial expediency
may suggest to the person responsible.
THE EQUINOX
" "The Editor will be glad to consider"
"contributions and to return such as"
"are unacceptable if stamps are enclosed"
" for the purpose"
THE EQUINOX
THE OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE A.'. A.'.
THE REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC ILLUMINISM
An. VI VOL. I. NO. III. Sun in Aries
MARCH MCMX
O.S.
"THE METHOD OF SCIENCE---THE AIM OF RELIGION"
LONDON
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO. LTD.
CONTENTS
PAGE
EDITORIAL 1
LIBER XIII 3
AHA! BY ALEISTER CROWLEY 9
THE HERB DANGEROUS ___ (PART III) THE POEM OF HASHISH. BY
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE (Translated by ALEISTER CROWLEY) 55
AN ORIGIN. BY VICTOR B. NEUBURG 115
THE SOUL-HUNTER 119
MADELEINE. BY ARTHUR F. GRIMBLE 129
THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON THE KING (BOOK II ___ "continued") 133
THE COMING OF APOLLO. BY VICTOR B. NEUBURG 281
THE BRIGHTON MYSTERY. BY GEORGE RAFFALOVICH 287
REVIEWS 113, 285, 304
THE SHADOWY DILL-WATERS. BY A. QUILLER, JR. 327
"SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT"
LIBER DCCCCLXIII ___ THE TREASURE-HOUSE OF IMAGES
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE SLOPES OF ABIEGNUS "Facing page" 4
THE STUDENT " 10
THE COMPLETE SYMBOL OF THE ROSE AND CROSS " 210
THE ELEMENTAL TABLETS AND CHERUBIC EMBLEMS " 212
THE LID OF THE PASTOS " 218
THE CEILING OF THE VAULT<4C>
<20>
THE FLOOR OF THE VAULT <20>
<20> " 222
THE CIRCULAR ALTAR <20>
<20>
THE ROSE AND CROSS <20>
"SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT"
THE TRIANGLE OF THE UNIVERSE " 4
THE GREEK CROSS OF THE ZODIAC " 70
{WEH NOTE: Two different versions of this editorial exist in separate
marketings of the 1st edition. Both will be given. This first one seems to
be the earlier version.}
EDITORIAL
HAPPY is the movement that has no history! At the beginning of our second
year we have little to record but quiet steady growth, a gradual spreading of
our Tree of Knowledge, a gradual awakening of interest in all parts of the
earth, a gradual access of fellow-workers, some young and enthusiastic, others
already weary of the search for Truth in a world where so many offer the Stone
of dogma, so few the Bread of experience.
There! we had nothing to say, and we have said it very nicely.
Floreas!
* * * * *
We must apologise for the necessity of holding over our edition of Sir
Edward Kelly's account of the Forty-Eight Angelical Keys, and other important
articles. Considerations of space were imperative.
* * * * *
Mr. H. Sheidan-Bickers will lecture on behalf of THE EQUINOX during the
year. We shall be glad if our readers will arrange with him through us to
speak in their towns. Mr. Bickers makes no charge for lecturing, and THE
EQUINOX may assist if desired in meeting the necessary expenses. {1}
NOTES OF THE SEMESTER
MR. SHERIDAN-BICKERS held a large and very successful meeting at Cambridge in
November.
We beg to extend our warmest sympathies to Brother Aloysius Crowley. The
gang of soi-disant Rosicrucian swindlers whose profits have suffered through
our exposures, having failed to frighten Mr. Aleister Crowley, decided to
assassinate him. Their hired ruffians seem to have been knaves as clumsy as
themselves, and Brother Aloysius suffered in his stead, escaping death by a
miracle.
If we do not extend our sympathy to Mr. Aleister Crowley also, it is from a
conviction that he has probably deserved anything that he may get.
In order to cope with the constantly increasing budget of letters of
inquiry and sympathy from every part of the world, we have moved into new
premises at 124 Victoria Street, Westminster, to which address all
communications should be directed. Callers will always be welcome, but it is
advisable to make appointments by letter or telephone.
{2}
{WEH NOTE: Of the two different versions of this editorial found in different
copies of the 1st edition, this seems to be the later version. It is found
tipped in to some copies where the original pages 1-2 have been cut away.}
EDITORIAL
HAPPY is the movement that has no history! At the beginning of our second
year we have little to record but quiet steady growth, a gradual spreading of
our Tree of Knowledge, a gradual awakening of interest in all parts of the
earth, a gradual access of fellow-workers, some young and enthusiastic, others
already weary of the search for Truth in a world where so many offer the Stone
of dogma, so few the Bread of experience.
There! we had nothing to say, and we have said it very nicely.
Floreas!
* * * * *
We must apologise for the necessity of holding over our edition of Sir
Edward Kelly's account of the Forty-Eight Angelical Keys, and other important
articles. Considerations of space were imperative.
* * * * *
Two days after the bound advance copies of this Number were delivered by
the printer, an order was made restraining publication, continued by Mr.
JUSTICE BUCKNILL, and dissolved by the Court of Appeal. {1}
NOTES OF THE SEMESTER
MR. SHERIDAN-BICKERS held a large meeting at Cambridge in November, as
successful as one would expect from the intellectual preeminence of our great
university.
We beg to extend our warmest sympathies to Brother Aloysius Crowley. It
seems possible that some gang of swindlers, fearing exposure, and having
failed to frighten Mr. Aleister Crowley, decided to assassinate him. Their
hired ruffians seem to have been knaves as clumsy as themselves, and Brother
Aloysius suffered in his stead, escaping death by a miracle.
If we do not extend our sympathy to Mr. Aleister Crowley also, it is from a
conviction that he has probably deserved anything that he may get.
In order to cope with the constantly increasing budget of letters of
inquiry and sympathy from every part of the world, we have moved into new
premises at 124 Victoria Street, Westminster, to which address all
communications should be directed. Callers will always be welcome, but it is
advisable to make appointments by letter or telephone.
{2}
LIBER XIII
VEL
GRADUUM MONTIS ABIEGNI
A SYLLABUS OF THE STEPS UPON THE PATH
A.'. A.'. Publication in Class D.
Issued by Order:
D.D.S. 7<> = 4<> Praemonstrator
O.S.V. 6<> = 5<> Imperator
N.S.F. 5<> = 6<> Cancellarius
51. Let not the failure and the pain turn aside the worshippers. The
foundations of the pyramid were hewn in the living rock ere sunset; did the
king weep at dawn that the crown of the pyramid was yet unquarried in the
distant land?
52. There was also a humming-bird that spake unto the horned cerastes, and
prayed him for poison. And the great snake of Khem the Holy One, the royal
Uraeus serpent, answered him and said:
53. I sailed over the sky of Nu in the car called Millions-of-Years, and I
saw not any creature upon Seb that was equal to me. The venom of my fang is
the inheritance of my father, and of my father's father; and how shall I give
it unto thee? Live thou and thy children as I and my fathers have lived, even
unto an hundred millions of generations, and it may be that the mercy of the
Mighty Ones may bestow upon thy children a drop of the poison of eld.
54. Then the humming-bird was afflicted in his spirit, and he flew unto the
flowers, and it was as if naught had been spoken between them. Yet in a
little while a serpent struck him that he died.
55. But an Ibis that meditated upon the bank of Nile the beautiful god
listened and heard. And he laid aside his Ibis ways, and became as a serpent
saying Peradventure in an hundred millions of millions of generations of my
children, they shall attain to a drop of the poison of the fang of the Exalted
One.
56. And behold! ere the moon waxed thrice he became an Uraeus serpent, and
the poison of the fang was established in him and his seed even for ever and
for ever.
LIBER LXV. CAP. V
{4}
{Illustration facing page 4 partially described:
This is an ornamented diagram of the Tree of Life, from Tipheret downward.
At the bottom of the figure is a solid line, below it the words:
"PROBATIONER
Liber LXI and LXV
[In certain cases Ritual LXXVIII.]"
Above this line, to the left: "PORTA", and to the right "PORTAE".
A triple ringed circle rests on this base line, for Malkut. Arched between
the rings at the bottom "RITUAL DCLXXI." Written within the circle are the
words:
"The Four Powers
of
The Sphinx
NEOPHYTE.
Liber VII.
The Building of the
Magic Pentacle."
Extending vertically from the circle of Malkut is the path of Taw, with
these words: "Control of the Astral Plane". This path connects to the circle
representing Yesod.
Extending at an angle from the circle of Malkut to the left is the path of
Shin, with these words: "Meditation Practice Equivalent to Ritual CXX". This
path connects to the circle representing Hod.
Extending at an angle from the circle of Malkut to the right is the path of
Qof, with these words: "Methods of Divination". This path connects to the
circle representing Netzach.
The ringed circle representing Yesod has "RITUAL CXX" arched between its
rings at the bottom and the following words written inside:
"Posture
Hatha Yoga
Control of Breathing.
ZELATOR
Liber CCXX
The Forging of the
Magic Sword."
Extending upward from the circle of Yesod is the path of Samekh,
interrupted by the crossing path of Peh. These words are on it: "Rising on
the Planes". This path is also interrupted by the center of a crescent before
continuing on to the circle representing Tipheret.
Extending at an angle from the circle of Yesod to the left is the path of
Resh, with these words: "Meditation Practice equivalent to Ritual DCLXXI".
This path connects to the circle representing Hod.
Extending at an angle from the circle of Yesod to the right is the path of
Tzaddi (as Crowley considered at this time), with these words: "Meditation
Practice on Expansion of Consciousness". This path connects to the circle
representing Netzach.
The ringed circle representing Hod has "NO RITUAL" arched between its rings
at the bottom and the following words written inside:
"The Qabalah
Liber DCCLXXVII
Gana Yoga
Control of Speech
PRACTICUS.
Liber XXVII
The Casting of the
Magic Cup"
Extending horizontally to the right from the circle of Hod is the path of
Peh, with these words: "Ritual & Meditation Practice to Destroy Thoughts".
This path connects to the circle representing Netzach.
Extending at an angle from the circle of Hod to the right is the path of
Ayin, with these words: "Talismans Evocations". This path is interrupted by
the left horn of a crescent moon and then continues on to the circle
representing Tipheret.
Extending vertically upward from the circle of Hod is part of the path of
Mem, with these words: "Leads to Grade of (underline bifurcates path
lengthwise) Adeptus Major". The path breaks at top without closure.
The ringed circle representing Netzach has "NO RITUAL" arched between its
rings at the bottom and the following words written inside:
"Devotion to the
Order
Bhakti Yoga
Control of Action
PHILOSOPHUS.
Liber DCCCXIII
The Cutting of the
Magic Wand"
Extending at an angle from the circle of Netzach to the left is the path of
Nun, with these words: "Mahasatipatthana Etc" This path is interrupted by the
right horn of a crescent moon and then continues on to the circle representing
Tipheret.
Extending vertically upward from the circle of Netzach is part of the path
of Koph, with these words: "Leads to Grade of (underline bifurcates path
lengthwise) Adeptus Exemptus". The path breaks at top without closure.
A solid line is drawn behind the paths, from the upper arc of the circle of
Hod to that of the circle of Netzach. Above it are the words "PORTA COLLEGII
ad S.S."
A crescent moon depends from the circle representing Tipheret, body
centered on the intersection of the "PROTA COL..." and the path of Samekh,
horns touching the outer limit of the circle of Tipheret at the terminus of
the horizontal diameter of that circle. Within the crescent are the words:
"Control of Thought. Raja Yoga Harmonizing of the Knowledge
& Powers already acquired. Liber Mysteriorum
The Light- DOMINVS LIMINIS Lamp
-ing of the magic"
The ringed circle representing Tipheret has "RITUAL VIII" arched between
the rings at the bottom. Inside is circumscribed an upright pentagram with
the following in the averse pentagon formed by its lines: "ADEPTVS MINOR".
Between the points, inside the circle are these words, clockwise from the top
right: "Ritual", "Revealed", "in Vision", "of Eighth", "Aethyr".
Finally, there is a half-glory radiant about the upper half of the circle
representing Tipheret. This is composed of 26 spikes, black with a hollow
flame like a tear-drop extending into each. The bulbs of the flame-drops
define an arch. The bottom of the arch is defined by an arc concentric with
the Tipheret circle, and the edges curve up to meet the edges of the half-
glory. The following words are inside this arch: "The Knowledge &
Conversation of the HOLY GUARDIAN ANGEL".}
LIBER XIII
VEL
GRADUUM MONTIS ABIEGNI
A SYLLABUS OF THE STEPS UPON THE PATH
" ""Quote LXV. Cap. V. vv. 52-56"1
1. "The Probationer." His duties are laid down in Paper A, Class D. Being
"without," they are vague and general. He receives Liber LXI. and LXV.
[Certain Probationers are admitted after six months or more to Ritual
XXVIII.]
At the end of the Probation he passes Ritual DCLXXI., which constitutes him
a Neophyte.
2. "The Neophyte." His duties are laid down in Paper B, Class D. He
receives Liber VII.
Examination in Liber O, Caps I.-IV., Theoretical and Practical.
Examination in the Four Powers of the Sphinx. Practical.
Four tests are set.
Further, he builds up the magic Pentacle.
Finally he passes Ritual CXX., which constitutes him a Zelator. {5}
3. "The Zelator." His duties are laid down in Paper C, Class D. He receives
Liber CCXX., XXVII., and DCCCXIII.
Examinations in Posture and Control of Breath (see EQUINOX No. I).
Practical.
Further, he is given two meditation-practices corresponding to the two
rituals DCLXXI. and CXX.
(Examination is only in the knowledge of, and some little practical
acquaintance with, these meditations. The complete results, if attained,
would confer a much higher grade.)
Further, he forges the magic Sword.
No ritual admits to the grade of Practicus, which is conferred by authority
when the task of the Zelator is accomplished.
4. "The Practicus." His duties are laid down in Paper D, Class D.
Instruction and Examination in the Qabalah and Liber DCCLXXVII.
Instruction in Philosophical Meditation (Ghana-Yoga).2
Examination in some one mode of divination: "e.g.", Geomancy, Astrology, the
Tarot. Theoretical. He is given a meditation-practice on Expansion of
Consciousness.
He is given a meditation-practice in the destruction of thoughts.
Instruction and Examination in Control of Speech. Practical.
Further, he casts the magic Cup.
No ritual admits to the grade of Philosophus, which is {6} conferred by
authority when the Task of the Practicus is accomplished.
5. "The Philosophus." His duties are laid down in Paper E, Class D.
He practises Devotion to the Order.
1 WEH NOTE --- This line seems a printer's error, the quotation
was made on page 4.
2 All these instructions will be issued openly in THE EQUINOX in
due course, where this has not already been done.
Instruction and Examination in Methods of Meditation by Devotion (Bhakti-
Yoga).
Instruction and Examination in Construction and Consecration of Talismans,
and in Evocation.
Theoretical and Practical.
Examination in Rising on the Planes (Liber O, Caps. V., VI.). Practical.
He is given a meditation-practice on the Senses, and the Sheaths of the
Self, and the Practice called Mahasatipatthana.
(See The Sword of Song, "Science and Buddhism."
Instruction and Examination in Control of Action.
Further, he cuts the Magic Wand.
Finally, the Title of Dominus Liminis is conferred upon him.
He is given meditation-practices on the Control of Thought, and is
instructed in Raja-Yoga.
He receives Liber Mysteriorum and obtains a perfect understanding of the
Formulae of Initiation.
He meditates upon the diverse knowledge and power that he has acquired, and
harmonises it perfectly.
Further, he lights the Magic Lamp.
At last, Ritual VIII. admits him to the grade of Adeptus Minor.
"The Adeptus Minor." His duty is laid down in Paper F, Class D. {7}
It is to follow out the instruction given in the Vision of the Eighth
AEthyr for the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy
Guardian Angel.
[NOTE. This is in truth the sole task; the others are useful only as
adjuvants to and preparations for the One Work.
Moreover, once this task has been accomplished, there is no more need of
human help or instruction; for by this alone may the highest attainment be
reached.
All these grades are indeed but convenient landmarks, not necessarily
significant. A person who had attained them all might be immeasurably the
inferior of one who had attained none of them; it is Spiritual Experience
alone that counts in the Result; the rest is but Method.
Yet it is important to possess knowledge and power, provided that it be
devoted wholly to that One Work.]
{8}
AHA!
AHA! THE SEVENFOLD MYSTERY OF THE INEFFABLE LOVE;
THE COMING OF THE LORD IN THE AIR AS KING AND JUDGE
OF THIS CORRUPTED WORLD;
WHEREIN
UNDER THE FORM OF A DISCOURSE BETWEEN MARSYAS AN ADEPT
AND OLYMPAS HIS PUPIL THE WHOLE SECRET OF THE WAY OF
INITIATION IS LAID OPEN FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END;
FOR THE INSTRUCTION OF THE LITTLE CHILDREN OF THE LIGHT.
WRITTEN IN TREMBLING AND HUMILITY FOR THE BRETHREN
OF THE A.'. A.'. BY THEIR VERY DUTIFUL SERVANT, AN
ASPIRANT TO THEIR SUBLIME ORDER,
ALEISTER CROWLEY
{Illustration facing page 10 partly described:
This is a collotype in bright crimson. It is a photo of Crowley in black
robe, only visible from diaphragm up. His elbows rest on a table before him,
and his hands form the sign of the "horns of Horus" against his face on a
level with his eyes. His hood is turned back and pulled on as a hat, showing
the eye in the triangle and forming a rough triangle in cloth about that
device. He wears a serpent ring on the third finger of his right hand. On
the table to the left, in the corner of the photo, is a large and circular
honey topaz set in a vermilion cross (colors from other sources). A ribbon is
attached to the cross. To the right is a standing book, evidently Crowley's
magical diary. This book is bound in what looks like red Moroccan leather,
chased in gold and embossed (conjectured from surviving diaries of Crowley's)
The spine of the book has "PERDURABOMAGISTER" vertically on it. The "P" has
Alpha and Omega to either side, and the last "R" has "2" to the left and "4"
to the right. The cover board is engraved with a large pentagram in a circle.
The pentagram is interlaced as envoking earth would form, and there is a left
eye of Horus in the center.}
THE ARGUMENTATION
A LITTLE before Dawn, the pupil comes to greet his Master, and begs
instruction.
Inspired by his Angel, he demands the Doctrine of being rapt away into the
Knowledge and Conversation of Him.
The Master discloses the doctrine of Passive Attention or Waiting.
This seeming hard to the Pupil, it is explained further, and the Method of
Resignation, Constancy, and Patience inculcated. The Paradox of Equilibrium.
The necessity of giving oneself wholly up the the new element. Egoism
rebuked.
The Master, to illustrate this Destruction of the Ego, describes the
Visions of Dhyana.
He further describes the defence of the Soul against assailing Thoughts,
and shows that the duality of Consciousness is a blasphemy against the Unity
of God; so that even the thought called God is a denial of God-as-He-is-in-
Himself.
The pupil sees nothing but a blank midnight in this Emptying of the Soul.
He is shown that this is the necessary condition of Illumination. Distinction
is further made between these three Dhyanas, and those early visions in which
things appear as objective. With these three Dhyanas, moreover, are Four
other of the Four Elements: and many more.
Above these is the Veil of Paroketh. Its guardians.
The Rosy Cross lies beyond this veil, and therewith the vision called
Vishvarupadarshana. Moreover, there is the Knowledge and Conversation of the
Holy Guardian Angel.
The infinite number and variety of these Visions.
The impossibility of revealing all these truths to the outer and
uninitiated world.
The Vision of the Universal Peacock ___ Atmadarshana. The confusion of the
Mind, and the Perception of its self-contradiction.
The Second Veil ___ the Veil of the Abyss.
The fatuity of Speech. {11}
A discussion as to the means by which the vision arises in the pure Soul is
useless; suffice it that in the impure Soul no Vision will arise. The
practical course is therefore to cleanse the Soul.
The four powers of the Sphinx; even adepts hardly attain to one of them!
The final Destruction of the Ego.
The Master confesses that he has lured the disciple by the promise of Joy,
as the only thing comprehensible by him, although pain and joy are transcended
even in early visions.
Ananda (bliss) ___ and its opposite ___ mark the first steps of the path.
Ultimately all things are transcended; and even so, this attainment of Peace
is but as a scaffolding to the Palace of the King.
The sheaths of the soul. The abandonment of all is necessary; the adept
recalls his own tortures, as all that he loved was torn away.
The Ordeal of the Veil of the Abyss; the Unbinding of the Fabric of Mind,
and its ruin.
The distinction between philosophical credence and interior certitude.
Sammasati ___ the trance wherein the adept perceives his causal connection
with the Universe; past, present, and future.
Mastering the Reason, he becomes as a little child, and invokes his Holy
Guardian Angel, the Augoeides.
Atmadarshana arising is destroyed by the Opening of the Eye of Shiva; the
annihilation of the Universe,. The adept is destroyed, and there arises the
Master of the Temple.
The pupil, struck with awe, proclaims his devotion to the Master; whereat
the latter bids him rather unite himself with the Augoeides.
Yet, following the great annihilation, the adept reappears as an Angel to
instruct men in this doctrine.
The Majesty of the Master described.
The pupil, wonder-struck, swears to attain, and asks for further
instruction.
The Master describes the Eight Limbs of Yoga.
The pupil lamenting the difficulty of attainment, the Master shows forth
the sweetness of the hermit's life.
One doubt remains: will not the world be able instantly to recognise the
Saint? The Master replies that only imperfect Saints reveal themselves as
such. Of these are {12} the cranks and charlatans, and those that fear and
deny Life. But let us fix our thoughts on Love, and not on the failings of
others!
The Master invokes the Augoeides; the pupil through sympathy is almost rapt
away.
The Augoeides hath given the Master a message; namely, to manifest the New
Way of the Equinox of Horus, as revealed in Liber Legis.
He does so, and reconciles it with the Old Way by inviting the Test of
Experiment. They would go therefore to the Desert or the Mountains ___ nay!
here and now shall it be accomplished.
Peace to all beings!
{13}
AHA!
OLYMPAS. Master, ere the ruby Dawn
Gild the dew of leaf and lawn,
Bidding the petals to unclose
Of heaven's imperishable Rose,
Brave heralds, banners flung afar
Of the lone and secret star,
I come to greet thee. Here I bow
To earth this consecrated brow!
As a lover woos the Moon
Aching in a silver swoon,
I reach my lips towards thy shoon,
Mendicant of the mystic boon!
MARSYAS. What wilt thou?
OLYMPAS. Let mine Angel say!
"Utterly to be rapt away!"
MARSYAS. How, whence, and whither?
OLYMPAS. By my kiss
From that abode to this ___ to this!"
My wings?
MARSYAS. Thou hast no wings. But see
An eagle sweeping from the Byss
Where God stands. Let him ravish thee,
And bear thee to a boundless bliss! {15}
OLYMPAS. How should I call him? How beseech?
MARSYAS. Silence is lovelier than Speech.
Only on a windless tree
Falls the dew, Felicity!
One ripple on the water mars
The magic mirror of the Stars.
OLYMPAS. My soul bends to the athletic stress
Of God's immortal loveliness.
Tell me, what wit avails the clod
To know the nearness of its God?
MARSYAS. First, let the soul be poised, and fledge
Truth's feather on mind's razor-edge.
Next, let no memory, feeling, hope
Stain all its starless horoscope.
Last, let it be content, twice void;
Not to be suffered or enjoyed;
Motionless, blind and deaf and dumb ---
So may it to its kingdom come!
OLYMPAS. Dear master, can this be? The wine
Embittered with dark discipline?
For the soul loves her mate, the sense.
MARSYAS. This bed is sterile. Thou must fence
Thy soul from all her foes, the creatures
That by their soft and siren natures
Lure thee to shipwreck!
OLYMPAS. Thou hast said:
"God is in all."
MARSYAS. In sooth.
OLYMPAS. Why dread
The Godhood? {16}
MARSYAS. Only as the thought
Is God, adore it. But the soul creates
Misshapen fiends, incestuous mates.
Slay these: they are false shadows of
The never-waning moon of love.
OLYMPAS. What thought is worthy?
MARSYAS. Truly none
Save one, in that it is but one.
Keep the mind constant; thou shalt see
Ineffable felicity.
Increase the will, and thou shalt find
It hath the strength to be resigned.
Resign the will; and from the string
Will's arrow shall have taken wing,
And from the desolate abode
Found the immaculate heart of God!
OLYMPAS. The word is hard!
MARSYAS. All things excite
Their equal and their opposite.
Be great, and thou shalt be ___ how small!
Be naught, and thou shalt be the All!
Eat not; all meat shall fill thy mouth:
Drink, and thy soul shall die of drouth!
Fill thyself; and that thou seekest
Is diluted to its weakest.
Empty thyself; the ghosts of night
Flee before the living Light.
Who clutches straws is drowned; but he
That hath the secret of the sea,
Lives with the whole lust of his limbs, {17}
Takes hold of water's self, and swims.
See, the ungainly albatross
Stumbles awkwardly across
Earth ___ one wing-beat, and he flies
Most graceful gallant in the skies!
So do thou leave thy thoughts, intent
On thy new noble element!
Throw the earth shackles off, and cling
To what imperishable thing
Arises from the Married death
Of thine own self in that whereon
Thou art fixed.
OLYMPAS. Then all life's loyal breath
Is a waste wind. All joy forgone,
I must strive ever?
MARSYAS. Cease to strive!
Destroy this partial I, this moan
Of an hurt beast! Sores keep alive
By scratching. Health is peace. Unknown
And unexpressed because at ease
Are the Most High Congruities.
OLYMPAS. Then death is thine "attainment"? I
Can do no better than to die!
MARSYAS. Indeed, that "I" that is not God
Is but a lion in the road!
Knowest thou not (even now!) how first
The fetters of Restriction burst?
In the rapture of the heart
Self hath neither lot nor part. {18}
MARSYAS. Tell me, dear master, how the bud
First breaks to brilliance of bloom:
What ecstasy of brain and blood
Shatters the seal upon the tomb
Of him whose gain was the world's loss
Our father Christian Rosycross!
MARSYAS. First, one is like a gnarled old oak
On a waste heath. Shrill shrieks the wind.
Night smothers earth. Storm swirls to choke
The throat of silence! Hard behind
Gathers a blacker cloud than all.
But look! but look! it thrones a ball
Of blistering fire. It breaks. The lash
Of lightning snakes him forth. One crash
Splits the old tree. One rending roar! ---
And night is darker than before.
OLYMPAS. Nay, master, master! Terror hath
So fierce an hold upon the path?
Life must lie crushed, a charred black swath,
In that red harvest's aftermath!
MARSYAS. Life lives. Storm passes. Clouds dislimn.
The night is clear. And now to him
Who hath endured is given the boon
Of an immeasurable moon.
The air about the adept congeals
To crystal; in his heart he feels
One needle pang; then breaks that splendour
Infinitely pure and tender ...
___ And the ice drags him down! {19}
OLYMPAS. But may
Our trembling frame, our clumsy clay,
Endure such anguish?
MARSYAS. In the worm
Lurks an unconquerable germ
Identical. A sparrow's fall
Were the Destruction of the All!
More; know that this surpasses skill
To express its ecstasy. The thrill
Burns in the memory like the glory
Of some far beaconed promontory
Where no light shines but on the comb
Of breakers, flickerings of the foam!
OLYMPAS. The path ends here?
MARSYAS. Ingenuous one!
The path ___ the true path ___ scarce begun.
When does the night end?
OLYMPAS. When the sun,
Crouching below the horizon,
Flings up his head, tosses his mane,
Ready to leap.
MARSYAS. Even so. Again
The adept secures his subtle fence
Against the hostile shafts of sense,
Pins for a second his mind; as you
May have seen some huge wrestler do.
With all his gathered weight heaped, hurled,
Resistless as the whirling world,
He holds his foeman to the floor
For one great moment and no more. {20}
So ___ then the sun-blaze! All the night
Bursts to a vivid orb of light.
There is no shadow; nothing is,
But the intensity of bliss.
Being is blasted. That exists.
OLYMPAS. Ah!
MARSYAS. But the mind, that mothers mists,
Abides not there. The adept must fall
Exhausted.
OLYMPAS. There's an end of all?
MARSYAS. But not an end of this! Above
All life as is the pulse of love,
So this transcends all love.
OLYMPAS. Ah me!
Who may attain?
MARSYAS. Rare souls.
OLYMPAS. I see
Imaged a shadow of this light.
MARSYAS. Such is its sacramental might
That to recall it radiates
Its symbol. The priest elevates
The Host, and instant blessing stirs
The hushed awaiting worshippers.
OLYMPAS. Then how secure the soul's defence?
How baffle the besieger, Sense?
MARSYAS. See the beleagured city, hurt
By hideous engines, sore begirt
And gripped by lines of death, well scored
With shell, nigh open to the sword!
Now comes the leader; courage, run {21}
Contagious through the garrison!
Repair the trenches! Man the wall!
Restore the ruined arsenal!
Serve the great guns! The assailants blench;
They are driven from the foremost trench.
The deadliest batteries belch their hell
No more. So day by day fought well,
We silence gun by gun. At last
The fiercest of the fray is past;
The circling hills are ours. The attack
Is over, save for the rare crack,
Long dropping shots from hidden forts; ---
___ So is it with our thoughts!
OLYMPAS. The hostile thoughts, the evil things!
They hover on majestic wings,
Like vultures waiting for a man
To drop from the slave-caravan!
MARSYAS. All thoughts are evil. Thought is two:
The seer and the seen. Eschew
That supreme blasphemy, my son,
Remembering that God is One.
OLYMPAS. God is a thought!
MARSYAS. The "thought" of God
Is but a shattered emerod:
A plague, an idol, a delusion,
Blasphemy, schism, and confusion!
OLYMPAS. Banish my one high thought? The night
Indeed were starless.
MARSYAS. Very right!
But that impalpable inane {22}
Is the condition of success;
Even as earth lies black to gain
Spring's green and autumn's fruitfulness.
OLYMPAS. I dread this midnight of the soul.
MARSYAS. Welcome the herald!
OLYMPAS. How control
The horror of the mind? The insane
Dead melancholy?
MARSYAS. Trick is vain.
Sheer manhood must support the strife,
And the trained Will, the Root of Life,
Bear the adept triumphant.
OLYMPAS. Else?
MARSYAS. The reason, like a chime of bells
Ripped by the lightning, cracks.
OLYMPAS. And these
Are the first sights the magus sees?
MARSYAS. The first true sights. Bright images
Throng the clear mind at first, a crowd
Of Gods, lights, armies, landscapes; loud
Reverberations of the Light.
But these are dreams, things in the mind,
Reveries, idols. Thou shalt find
No rest therein. The former three
(Lightning, moon, sun) are royally
Liminal to the Hall of Truth.
Also there be with them, in sooth,
Their brethren. There's the vision called
The Lion of the Light, a brand
Of ruby flame and emerald {23}
Waved by the Hermeneutic Hand.
There is the Chalice, whence the flood
Of God's beatitude of blood
Flames. O to sing those starry tunes!
O colder than a million moons!
O vestal waters! Wine of love
Wan as the lyric soul thereof!
There is the Wind, a whirling sword,
The savage rapture of the air
Tossed beyond space and time. My Lord,
My Lord, even now I see Thee there
In infinite motion! And beyond
There is the Disk, the wheel of things;
Like a black boundless diamond
Whirring with millions of wings!
OLYMPAS. Master!
MARSYAS. Know also that above
These portents hangs no veil of love;
But, guarded by unsleeping eyes
Of twice seven score severities,
The Veil that only rips apart
When the spear strikes to Jesus' heart!
A mighty Guard of Fire are they
With sabres turning every way!
Their eyes are millstones greater than
The earth; their mouths run seas of blood.
Woe be to that accurs<72>d man
Of whom they are the iniquities!
Swept in their wrath's avenging flood
To black immitigable seas! {24}
Woe to the seeker who shall fail
To rend that vexful virgin Veil!
Fashion thyself by austere craft
Into a single azure shaft
Loosed from the string of Will; behold
The Rainbow! Thou art shot, pure flame,
Past the reverberated Name
Into the Hall of Death. Therein
The Rosy Cross is subtly seen.
OLYMPAS. Is that a vision, then?
MARSYAS. It is.
OLYMPAS. Tell me thereof!
MARSYAS. O not of this!
Of all the flowers in God's field
We name not this. Our lips are sealed
In that the Universal Key
Lieth within its mystery.
But know thou this. These visions give
A hint both faint and fugitive
Yet haunting, that behind them lurks
Some Worker, greater than his works.
Yea, it is given to him who girds
His loins up, is not fooled by words,
Who takes life lightly in his hand
To throw away at Will's command,
To know that View beyond the Veil.
O petty purities and pale,
These visions I have spoken of! {25}
The infinite Lord of Light and Love
Breaks on the soul like dawn. See! See!
Great God of Might and Majesty!
Beyond sense, beyond sight, a brilliance
Burning from His glowing glance!
Formless, all the worlds of flame
Atoms of that fiery frame!
The adept caught up and broken;
Slain, before His Name be spoken!
In that fire the soul burns up.
One drop from that celestial cup
Is an abyss, an infinite sea
That sucks up immortality!
O but the Self is manifest
Through all that blaze! Memory stumbles
Like a blind man for all the rest.
Speech, like a crag of limestone, crumbles,
While this one soul of thought is sure
Through all confusion to endure,
Infinite Truth in one small span:
This that is God is Man.
OLYMPAS. Master! I tremble and rejoice.
MARSYAS. Before His own authentic voice
Doubt flees. The chattering choughs of talk
Scatter like sparrows from a hawk.
OLYMPAS. Thenceforth the adept is certain of
The mystic mountain? Light and Love
Are Life therein, and they are his?
MARSYAS. Even so. And One supreme there is
Whom I have known, being He. Withdrawn {26}
Within the curtains of the dawn
Dwells that concealed. Behold! he is
A blush, a breeze, a song, a kiss,
A rosy flame like Love, his eyes
Blue, the quintessence of all skies,
His hair a foam of gossamer
Pale gold as jasmine, lovelier
Than all the wheat of Paradise.
O the dim water-wells his eyes!
There is such depth of Love in them
That the adept is rapt away,
Dies on that mouth, a gleaming gem
Of dew caught in the boughs of Day!
OLYMPAS. The hearing of it is so sweet
I swoon to silence at thy feet.
MARSYAS. Rise! Let me tell thee, knowing HIm,
The Path grows never wholly dim.
Lose Him, and thou indeed wert lost!
But He will not lose thee!
OLYMPAS. Exhaust
The Word!
MARSYAS. Had I a million songs,
And every song a million words,
And every word a million meanings,
I could not count the choral throngs
Of Beauty's beatific birds,
Or gather up the paltry gleanings
Of this great harvest of delight!
Hast thou not heard the word aright?
That world is truly infinite. {27}
Even as a cube is to a square
Is that to this.
OLYMPAS. Royal and rare!
Infinite light of burning wheels!
MARSYAS. Ay! The imagination reels.
Thou must attain before thou know,
And when thou knowest ___ Mighty woe
That silence grips the willing lips!
OLYMPAS. Ever was speech the thought's eclipse.
MARSYAS. Ay, not to veil the truth to him
Who sought it, groping in the dim
Halls of illusion, said the sages
In all the realms, in all the ages,
"Keep silence." By a word should come
Your sight, and we who see are dumb!
We have sought a thousand times to teach
Our knowledge; we are mocked by speech.
So lewdly mocked, that all this word
Seems dead, a cloudy crystal blurred,
Though it cling closer to life's heart
Than the best rhapsodies of art!
OLYMPAS. Yet speak!
MARSYAS. Ah, could I tell thee of
These infinite things of Light and Love!
There is the Peacock; in his fan
Innumerable plumes of Pan!
Oh! every plume hath countless eyes;
___ Crown of created mysteries! ---
Each holds a Peacock like the First.
OLYMPAS. How can this be? {28}
MARSYAS. The mind's accurst.
It cannot be. It is. Behold,
Battalion on battalion rolled!
There is war in Heaven! The soul sings still,
Struck by the plectron of the Will;
But the mind's dumb; its only cry
The shriek of its last agony!
OLYMPAS. Surely it struggles.
MARSYAS. Bitterly!
And, mark! it must be strong to die!
The weak and partial reason dips
One edge, another springs, as when
A melting iceberg reels and tips
Under the sun. Be mighty then,
A lord of Thought, beyond wit and wonder
Balanced ___ then push the whole mind under,
Sunk beyond chance of floating, blent
Rightly with its own element,
Not lifting jagged peaks and bare
To the unsympathetic air!
This is the second veil; and hence
As first we slew the things of sense
Upon the altar of their God,
So must the Second Period
Slay the ideas, to attain
To that which is, beyond the brain.
OLYMPAS. To that which is? ___ not thought? not sense?
MARSYAS. Knowledge is but experience
Made conscious of itself. The bee, {29}
Past master of geometry,
Hath not one word of all of it;
For wisdom is not mother-wit!
So the adept is called insane
For his frank failure to explain.
Language creates false thoughts; the true
Breed language slowly. Following
Experience of a thing we knew
Arose the need to name the thing.
So, ancients likened a man's mind
To the untamed evasive wind.
Some fool thinks names are things; and boasts
Aloud of spirits and of ghosts.
Religion follows on a pun!
And we, who know that Holy One
Of whom I told thee, seek in vain
Figure or word to make it plain.
OLYMPAS. Despair of man!
MARSYAS. Man is the seed
Of the unimaginable flower.
By singleness of thought and deed
It may bloom now ___ this actual hour!
OLYMPAS. The soul made safe, is vision sure
To rise therein?
MARSYAS. Though calm and pure
It seem, maybe some thought hath crept
Into his mind to baulk the adept.
The expectation of success
Suffices to destroy the stress
Of the one thought. But then, what odds? {30}
"Man's vision goes, dissolves in God's;"
Or, "by God's grace the Light is given
To the elected heir of heaven."
These are but idle theses, dry
Dugs of the cow Theology.
Business is business. The one fact
That we know is: the gods exact
A stainless mirror. Cleanse thy soul!
Perfect the will's austere control!
For the rest, wait! The sky once clear,
Dawn needs no prompting to appear!
OLYMPAS. Enough! it shall be done.
MARSYAS. Beware!
Easily trips the big word "dare."
Each man's an OEdipus, that thinks
He hath the four powers of the Sphinx,
Will, Courage, Knowledge, Silence. Son,
Even the adepts scarce win to one!
Thy Thoughts ___ they fall like rotten fruits.
But to destroy the power that makes
These thoughts ___ thy Self? A man it takes
To tear his soul up by the roots!
This is the mandrake fable, boy!
OLYMPAS. You told me that the Path was joy.
MARSYAS. A lie to lure thee!
OLYMPAS. Master!
MARSYAS. Pain
And joy are twin toys of the brain.
Even early visions pass beyond!
OLYMPAS. Not all the crabbed runes I have conned {31}
Told me so plain a truth. I see,
Inscrutable Simplicity!
Crushed like a blind-worm by the heel
Of all I am, perceive, and feel,
My truth was but the partial pang
That chanced to strike me as I sang.
MARSYAS. In the beginning, violence
Marks the extinction of the sense.
Anguish and rapture rack the soul.
These are disruptions of control.
Self-poised, a brooding hawk, there hangs
In the still air the adept. The bull
On the firm earth goes not so smooth!
So the first fine ecstatic pangs
Pass; balance comes.
OLYMPAS. How wonderful
Are these tall avenues of truth!
MARSYAS. So the first flash of light and terror
Is seen as shadow, known as error.
Next, light comes as light; as it grows
The sense of peace still steadier glows;
And the fierce lust, that linked the soul
To its God, attains a chaste control.
Intimate, an atomic bliss,
Is the last phrasing of that kiss.
Not ecstasy, but peace, pure peace!
Invisible the dew sublimes
From the great mother, subtly climbs
And loves the leaves! Yea, in the end, {32}
Vision all vision must transcend.
These glories are mere scaffolding
To the Closed Palace of the King.
OLYMPAS. Yet, saidst thou, ere the new flower shoots
The soul is torn up by the roots.
MARSYAS. Now come we to the intimate things
Known to how few! Man's being clings
First to the outer. Free from these
The inner sheathings, and he sees
Those sheathings as external. Strip
One after one each lovely lip
From the full rose-but! Ever new
Leaps the next petal to the view.
What binds them by Desire? Disease
Most dire of direful Destiny's!
OLYMPAS. I have abandoned all to tread
The brilliant pathway overhead!
MARSYAS. Easy to say. To abandon all,
All must be first loved and possessed.
Nor thou nor I have burst the thrall.
All ___ as I offered half in jest,
Sceptic ___ was torn away from me.
Not without pain! THEY slew my child,
Dragged my wife down to infamy
Loathlier than death, drove to the wild
My tortured body, stripped me of
Wealth, health, youth, beauty, ardour, love.
Thou has abandoned all? Then try
A speck of dust within the eye!
OLYMPAS. But that is different! {33}
MARSYAS. Life is one.
Magic is life. The physical
(Men name it) is a house of call
For the adept, heir of the sun!
Bombard the house! it groans and gapes.
The adept runs forth, and so escapes
That ruin!
OLYMPAS. Smoothly parallel
The ruin of the mind as well?
MARSYAS. Ay! Hear the Ordeal of the Veil,
The Second Veil! ... O spare me this
Magical memory! I pale
To show the Veil of the Abyss.
Nay, let confession be complete!
OLYMPAS. Master, I bend me at thy feet ---
Why do they sweat with blood and dew?
MARSYAS. Blind horror catches at my breath.
The path of the abyss runs through
Things darker, dismaller than death!
Courage and will! What boots their force?
The mind rears like a frightened horse.
There is no memory possible
Of that unfathomable hell.
Even the shadows that arise
Are things to dreadful to recount!
There's no such doom in Destiny's
Harvest of horror. The white fount
Of speech is stifled at its source.
Know, the sane spirit keeps its course
By this, that everything it thinks
Hath causal or contingent links. {34}
Destroy them, and destroy the mind!
O bestial, bottomless, and blind
Black pit of all insanity!
The adept must make his way to thee!
This is the end of all our pain,
The dissolution of the brain!
For lo! in this no mortar sticks;
Down come the house ___ a hail of bricks!
The sense of all I hear is drowned;
Tap, tap, isolated sound,
Patters, clatters, batters, chatters,
Tap, tap, tap, and nothing matters!
Senseless hallucinations roll
Across the curtain of the soul.
Each ripple on the river seems
The madness of a maniac's dreams!
So in the self no memory-chain
Or causal wisp to bind the straws!
The Self disrupted! Blank, insane,
Both of existence and of laws,
The Ego and the Universe
Fall to one black chaotic curse.
OLYMPAS. So ends philosophy's inquiry:
"Summa scientia nihil scire."
MARSYAS. Ay, but that reasoned thesis lacks
The impact of reality.
This vision is a battle axe
Splitting the skull. O pardon me!
But my soul faints, my stomach sinks.
Let me pass on!
OLYMPAS. My being drinks {35}
The nectar-poison of the Sphinx.
This is a bitter medicine!
MARSYAS. Black snare that I was taken in!
How one may pass I hardly know.
Maybe time never blots the track.
Black, black, intolerably black!
Go, spectre of the ages, go!
Suffice it that I passed beyond.
I found the secret of the bond
Of thought to thought through countless years
Through many lives, in many spheres,
Brought to a point the dark design
Of this existence that is mine.
I knew my secret. "All I was"
I brought into the burning-glass,
And all its focussed light and heat
Charred "all I am." The rune's complete
When "all I shall be" flashes by
Like a shadow on the sky.
Then I dropped my reasoning.
Vacant and accursed thing!
By my Will I swept away
The web of metaphysic, smiled
At the blind labyrinth, where the grey
Old snake of madness wove his wild
Curse! As I trod the trackless way
Through sunless gorges of Cathay,
I became a little child.
By nameless rivers, swirling through {36}
Chasms, a fantastic blue,
Month by month, on barren hills,
In burning heat, in bitter chills,
Tropic forest, Tartar snow,
Smaragdine archipelago,
See me ___ led by some wise hand
That I did not understand.
Morn and noon and eve and night
I, the forlorn eremite,
Called on Him with mild devotion,
As the dew-drop woos the ocean.
In my wanderings I came
To an ancient park aflame
With fairies' feet. Still wrapped in love
I was caught up, beyond, above
The tides of being. The great sight
Of the intolerable light
Of the whole universe that wove
The labyrinth of life and love
Blazed in me. Then some giant will,
Mine or another's thrust a thrill
Through the great vision. All the light
Went out in an immortal night,
The world annihilated by
The opening of the Master's Eye.
How can I tell it?
OLYMPAS. Master, master!
A sense of some divine disaster
Abases me. {37}
MARSYAS. Indeed, the shrine
Is desolate of the divine!
But all the illusion gone, behold
The one that is!
OLYMPAS. Royally rolled,
I hear strange music in the air!
MARSYAS. It is the angelic choir, aware
Of the great Ordeal dared and done
By one more Brother of the Sun!
OLYMPAS. Master, the shriek of a great bird
Blends with the torrent of the thunder.
MARSYAS. It is the echo of the word
That tore the universe asunder.
OLYMPAS. Master, thy stature spans the sky.
MARSYAS. Verily; but it is not I.
The adept dissolves ___ pale phantom form
Blown from the black mouth of the storm.
It is another that arises!
OLYMPAS. Yet in thee, through thee!
MARSYAS. I am not.
OLYMPAS. For me thou art.
MARSYAS. So that suffices
To seal thy will? To cast thy lot
Into the lap of God? Then, well!
OLYMPAS. Ay, there is no more potent spell.
Through life, through death, by land and sea
Most surely will I follow thee.
MARSYAS. Follow thyself, not me. Thou hast
An Holy Guardian Angel, bound
to lead thee from thy bitter waste {38}
To the inscrutable profound
That is His covenanted ground.
OLYMPAS. Thou who hast known these master-keys
Of all creation's mysteries,
Tell me, what followed the great gust
Of God that blew his world to dust?
MARSYAS. I, even I the man, became
As a great sword of flashing flame.
My life, informed with holiness,
Conscious of its own loveliness,
Like a well that overflows
At the limit of the snows,
Sent its crystal stream to gladden
The hearts of me, their lives to madden
With the intoxicating bliss
(Wine mixed with myrrh and ambergris!)
Of this bitter-sweet perfume,
This gorse's blaze of prickly bloom
That is the Wisdom of the Way.
Then springs the statue from the clay,
And all God's doubted fatherhood
Is seen to be supremely good.
Live within the sane sweet sun!
Leave the shadow-world alone!
OLYMPAS. There is a crown for every one;
For every one there is a throne!
MARSYAS. That crown is Silence. Sealed and sure!
That throne is Knowledge perfect pure.
Below that throne adoring stand {39}
Virtues in a blissful band;
Mercy, majesty and power,
Beauty and harmony and strength,
Triumph and splendour, starry shower
Of flames that flake their lily length,
A necklet of pure light, far-flung
Down to the Base, from which is hung
A pearl, the Universe, whose sight
Is one globed jewel of delight.
Fallen no more! A bowered bride
Blushing to be satisfied!
OLYMPAS. All this, of once the Eye unclose?
MARSYAS. The golden cross, the ruby rose
Are gone, when flaming from afar
The Hawk's eye blinds the Silver Star.
O brothers of the Star, caressed
By its cool flames from brow to breast,
Is there some rapture yet to excite
This prone and pallid neophyte?
OLYMPAS. O but there is no need of this!
I burn toward the abyss of Bliss.
I call the Four Powers of the Name;
Earth, wind and cloud, sea, smoke and flame
To witness: by this triune Star
I swear to break the twi-forked bar.
But how to attain? Flexes and leans
The strongest will that lacks the means.
MARSYAS. There are seven keys to the great gate,
Being eight in one and one in eight. {40}
First, let the body of thee be still,
Bound by the cerements of will,
Corpse-rigid; thus thou mayst abort
The fidget-babes that tense the thought.
Next, let the breath-rhythm be low,
Easy, regular, and slow;
So that thy being be in tune
With the great sea's Pacific swoon.
Third, let thy life be pure and calm
Swayed softly as a windless palm.
Fourth, let the will-to-live be bound
To the one love of the Profound.
Fifth, let the thought, divinely free
From sense, observe its entity.
Watch every thought that springs; enhance
Hour after hour thy vigilance!
Intense and keen, turned inward, miss
No atom of analysis!
Sixth, on one thought securely pinned
Still every whisper of the wind!
So like a flame straight and unstirred
Burn up thy being in one word!
Next, still that ecstasy, prolong
Thy meditation steep and strong,
Slaying even God, should He distract
Thy attention from the chosen act!
Last, all these things in one o'erpowered,
Time that the midnight blossom flowered!
The oneness is. Yet even in this,
My son, thou shalt not do amiss {41}
If thou restrain the expression, shoot
Thy glance to rapture's darkling root,
Discarding name, form, sight, and stress
Even of this high consciousness;
Pierce to the heart! I leave thee here:
Thou art the Master. I revere
Thy radiance that rolls afar,
O Brother of the Silver Star!
OLYMPAS. Ah, but no ease may lap my limbs.
Giants and sorcerers oppose;
Ogres and dragons are my foes!
Leviathan against me swims,
And lions roar, and Boreas blows!
No Zephyrs woo, no happy hymns
Paean the Pilgrim of the Rose!
MARSYAS. I teach the royal road of light.
Be thou, devoutly eremite,
Free of thy fate. Choose tenderly
A place for thine Academy.
Let there be an holy wood
Of embowered solitude
By the still, the rainless river,
Underneath the tangled roots
Of majestic trees that quiver
In the quiet airs; where shoots
Of the kindly grass are green
Moss and ferns asleep between,
Lilies in the water lapped,
Sunbeams in the branches trapped
___ Windless and eternal even!
Silenced all the birds of heaven {42}
By the low insistent call
Of the constant waterfall.
There, to such a setting be
Its carven gem of deity,
A central flawless fire, enthralled
Like Truth within an emerald!
Thou shalt have a birchen bark
On the river in the dark;
And at the midnight thou shalt go
to the mid-stream's smoothest flow,
And strike upon a golden bell
The spirit's call; then say the spell:
"Angel, mine angel, draw thee nigh!"
Making the Sign of Magistry
With wand of lapis lazuli.
Then, it may be, through the blind dumb
Night thou shalt see thine angel come,
Hear the faint whisper of his wings,
Behold the starry breast begemmed
With the twelve stones of the twelve kings!
His forehead shall be diademed
With the faint light of stars, wherein
The Eye gleams dominant and keen.
Thereat thou swoonest; and thy love
Shall catch the subtle voice thereof.
He shall inform his happy lover:
My foolish prating shall be over!
OLYMPAS. O now I burn with holy haste.
This doctrine hath so sweet a taste
That all the other wine is sour.
MARSYAS. Son, there's a bee for every flower. {43}
Lie open, a chameleon cup,
And let Him suck thine honey up!
OLYMPAS. There is one doubt. When souls attain
Such an unimagined gain
Shall not others mark them, wise
Beyond mere mortal destinies?
MARSYAS. Such are not the perfect saints.
While the imagination faints
Before their truth, they veil it close
As amid the utmost snows
The tallest peaks most straitly hide
With clouds their holy heads. Divide
The planes! Be ever as you can
A simple honest gentleman!
Body and manners be at ease,
Not bloat with blazoned sanctities!
Who fights as fights the soldier-saint?
And see the artist-adept paint!
Weak are those souls that fear the stress
Of earth upon their holiness!
They fast, they eat fantastic food,
They prate of beans and brotherhood,
Wear sandals, and long hair, and spats,
And think that makes them Arahats!
How shall man still his spirit-storm?
Rational Dress and Food Reform!
OLYMPAS. I know such saints.
MARSYAS. An easy vice:
So wondrous well they advertise!
O their mean souls are satisfied {44}
With wind of spiritual pride.
They're all negation. "Do not eat;
What poison to the soul is meat!
Drink not; smoke not; deny the will!
Wine and tobacco make us ill."
Magic is life; the Will to Live
Is one supreme Affirmative.
These things that flinch from Life are worth
No more to Heaven than to Earth.
Affirm the everlasting Yes!
OLYMPAS. Those saints at least score one success:
Perfection of their priggishness!
MARSYAS. Enough. The soul is subtlier fed
With meditation's wine and bread.
Forget their failings and our own;
Fix all our thoughts on Love alone!
Ah, boy, all crowns and thrones above
Is the sanctity of love.
In His warm and secret shrine
Is a cup of perfect wine,
Whereof one drop is medicine
Against all ills that hurt the soul.
A flaming daughter of the Jinn
Brought to me once a wing<6E>d scroll,
Wherein I read the spell that brings
The knowledge of that King of Kings.
Angel, I invoke thee now!
Bend on me the starry brow!
Spread the eagle wings above {45}
The pavilion of our love! ....
Rise from your starry sapphire seats!
See, where through the quickening skies
The oriflamme of beauty beats
Heralding loyal legionaries,
Whose flame of golden javelins
Fences those peerless paladins.
There are the burning lamps of them,
Splendid star-clusters to begem
The trailing torrents of those blue
Bright wings that bear mine angel through!
O Thou art like an Hawk of Gold,
Miraculously manifold,
For all the sky's aflame to be
A mirror magical of Thee!
The stars seem comets, rushing down
To gem thy robes, bedew thy crown.
Like the moon-plumes of a strange bird
By a great wind sublimely stirred,
Thou drawest the light of all the skies
Into thy wake. The heaven dies
In bubbling froth of light, that foams
About thine ardour. All the domes
Of all the heavens close above thee
As thou art known of me who love thee.
Excellent kiss, thou fastenest on
This soul of mine, that it is gone,
Gone from all life, and rapt away
Into the infinite starry spray
Of thine own AEon ... Alas for me! {46}
I faint. Thy mystic majesty
Absorbs this spark.
OLYMPAS. All hail! all hail!
White splendour through the viewless veil!
I am drawn with thee to rapture.
OLYMPAS. Stay!
I bear a message. Heaven hath sent
The knowledge of a new sweet way
Into the Secret Element.
OLYMPAS. Master, while yet the glory clings
Declare this mystery magical!
MARSYAS. I am yet borne on those blue wings
Into the Essence of the All.
Now, now I stand on earth again,
Though, blazing through each nerve and vein,
The light yet holds its choral course,
Filling my frame with fiery force
Like God's. Now hear the Apocalypse
New-fledged on these reluctant lips!
OLYMPAS. I tremble like an aspen, quiver
Like light upon a rainy river!
MARSYAS. Do what thou wilt! is the sole word
Of law that my attainment heard.
Arise, and lay thine hand on God!
Arise, and set a period
Unto Restriction! That is sin:
To hold thine holy spirit in!
O thou that chafest at thy bars,
Invoke Nuit beneath her stars
With a pure heart (Her incense burned {47}
Of gums and woods, in gold inurned),
And let the serpent flame therein
A little, and thy soul shall win
To lie within her bosom. Lo!
Thou wouldst give all ___ and she cries: No!
Take all, and take me! Gather spice
And virgins and great pearls of price!
Worship me in a single robe,
Crowned richly! Girdle of the globe,
I love thee! Pale and purple, veiled,
Voluptuous, swan silver-sailed,
I love thee. I am drunkness
Of the inmost sense; my soul's caress
Is toward thee! Let my priestess stand
Bare and rejoicing, softly fanned
By smooth-lipped acolytes, upon
Mine iridescent altar-stone,
And in her love-chaunt swooningly
Say evermore: To me! To me!
I am the azure-lidded daughter
Of sunset; the all-girdling water;
The naked brilliance of the sky
In the voluptuous night am I!
With song, with jewel, with perfume,
Wake all my rose's blush and bloom!
Drink to me! Love me! I love thee,
My love, my lord ___ to me! to me!
OLYMPAS. There is no harshness in the breath
Of this ___ is life surpassed, and death?
MARSYAS. There is the Snake that gives delight {48}
And Knowledge, stirs the heart aright
With drunkenness. Strange drugs are thine,
Hadit, and draughts of wizard wine!
These do no hurt. Thine hermits dwell
Not in the cold secretive cell,
But under purple canopies
With mighty-breasted mistresses
Magnificent as lionesses ___
Tender and terrible caresses!
Fire lives, and light, in eager eyes;
And massed huge hair about them lies.
They lead their hosts to victory:
In every joy they are kings; then see
That secret serpent coiled to spring
And win the world! O priest and king,
Let there be feasting, foining, fighting,
A revel of lusting, singing, smiting!
Work; be the bed of work! Hold! Hold!
the stars' kiss is as molten gold.
Harden! Hold thyself up! now die ---
Ah! Ah! Exceed! Exceed!
OLYMPAS. And I?
MARSYAS. My stature shall surpass the stars:
He hath said it! Men shall worship me
In hidden woods, on barren scaurs,
Henceforth to all eternity.
OLYMPAS. Hail! I adore thee! Let us feast.
MARSYAS. I am the consecrated Beast.
I build the Abominable House.
The Scarlet Woman is my Spouse ___ {49}
OLYMPAS. What is this word?
MARSYAS. Thou canst not know
Till thou hast passed the Fourth Ordeal.
OLYMPAS. I worship thee. The moon-rays flow
Masterfully rich and real
From thy red mouth, and burst, young suns
Chanting before the Holy Ones
Thine Eight Mysterious Orisons!
MARSYAS. The last spell! The availing word!
The two completed by the third!
The Lord of War, of Vengeance
That slayeth with a single glance!
This light is in me of my Lord.
His Name is this far-whirling sword.
I push His order. Keen and swift
My Hawk's eye flames; these arms uplift
The Banner of Silence and of Strength ___
Hail! Hail! thou art here, my Lord, at length!
Lo, the Hawk-Headed Lord am I:
My nemyss shrouds the night-blue sky.
Hail! ye twin warriors that guard
The pillars of the world! Your time
Is nigh at hand. The snake that marred
Heaven with his inexhaustible slime
Is slain; I bear the Wand of Power,
The Wand that waxes and that wanes;
I crush the Universe this hour
In my left hand; and naught remains!
Ho! for the splendour in my name
Hidden and glorious, a flame {50}
Secretly shooting from the sun.
Aum! Ha! ___ my destiny is done.
The Word is spoken and concealed.
OLYMPAS. I am stunned. What wonder was revealed?
MARSYAS. The rite is secret.
OLYMPAS. Profits it?
MARSYAS. Only to wisdom and to wit.
OLYMPAS. The other did no less.
MARSYAS. Then prove
Both by the master-key of Love.
The lock turns stiffly? Shalt thou shirk
To use the sacred oil of work?
Not from the valley shalt thou test
The eggs that line the eagle's nest!
Climb, with thy life at stake, the ice,
The sheer wall of the precipice!
Master the cornice, gain the breach,
And learn what next the ridge can teach!
Yet ___ not the ridge itself may speak
The secret of the final peak.
OLYMPAS. All ridges join at last.
MARSYAS. Admitted,
O thou astute and subtle-witted!
Yet one ___ loose, jagg<67>d, clad in mist!
Another ___ firm, smooth, loved and kissed
By the soft sun! Our order hath
This secret of the solar path,
Even as our Lord the Beast hath won
The mystic Number of the Sun.
OLYMPAS. These secrets are too high for me. {51}
MARSYAS. Nay, little brother! Come and see!
Neither by faith nor fear nor awe
Approach the doctrine of the Law!
Truth, Courage, Love, shall win the bout,
And those three others be cast out.
OLYMPAS. Lead me, Master, by the hand
Gently to this gracious land!
Let me drink the doctrine in,
An all-healing medicine!
Let me rise, correct and firm,
Steady striding to the term,
Master of my fate, to rise
To imperial destinies;
With the sun's ensanguine dart
Spear-bright in my blazing heart,
And my being's basil-plant
Bright and hard as adamant!
MARSYAS. Yonder, faintly luminous,
The yellow desert waits for us.
Lithe and eager, hand in hand,
We travel to the lonely land.
There, beneath the stars, the smoke
Of our incense shall invoke
The Queen of Space; and subtly She
Shall bend from Her infinity
Like a lambent flame of blue,
Touching us, and piercing through
All the sense-webs that we are
As the aethyr penetrates a star!
Her hands caressing the black earth, {52}
Her sweet lithe body arched for love,
Her feet a Zephyr to the flowers,
She calls my name ___ she gives the sign
That she is mine, supremely mine,
And clinging to the infinite girth
My soul gets perfect joy thereof
Beyond the abysses and the hours;
So that ___ I kiss her lovely brows;
She bathes my body in perfume
Of sweat .... O thou my secret spouse,
Continuous One of Heaven! illume
My soul with this arcane delight,
Volumptuous Daughter of the Night!
Eat me up wholly with the glance
Of thy luxurious brilliance!
OLYMPAS. The desert calls.
MARSYAS. Then let us go!
Or seek the sacramental snow,
Where like a high-priest I may stand
With acolytes on every hand,
The lesser peaks ___ my will withdrawn
To invoke the dayspring from the dawn,
Changing that rosy smoke of light
To a pure crystalline white;
Though the mist of mind, as draws
A dancer round her limbs the gauze,
Clothe Light, and show the virgin Sun
A lemon-pale medallion!
Thence leap we leashless to the goal,
Stainless star-rapture of the soul. {53}
So the altar-fires fade
As the Godhead is displayed.
Nay, we stir not. Everywhere
Is our temple right appointed.
All the earth is faery fair
For us. Am I not anointed?
The Sigil burns upon the brow
At the adjuration ___ here and now.
OLYMPAS. The air is laden with perfumes.
MARSYAS. Behold! It beams ___ it burns ___ it blooms.
* * * * *
OLYMPAS. Master, how subtly hast thou drawn
The daylight from the Golden Dawn,
Bidden the Cavernous Mount unfold
Its Ruby Rose, its Cross of Gold;
Until I saw, flashed from afar,
The Hawk's eye in the Silver Star!
MARSYAS. Peace to all beings. Peace to thee,
Co-heir of mine eternity!
Peace to the greatest and the least,
To nebula and nenuphar!
Light in abundance be increased
On them that dream that shadows are!
OLYMPAS. Blessing and worship to The Beast,
The prophet of the lovely Star!
{54}
THE HERB DANGEROUS
PART III
THE POEM OF HASHISH
THE POEM OF HASHISH
CHAPTER I
THE LONGING FOR INFINITY
THOSE who know how to observe themselves, and who preserve the memory of their
impressions, those who, like Hoffmann, have known how to construct their
spiritual barometer, have sometimes had to note in the observatory of their
mind fine seasons, happy days, delicious minutes. There are days when man
awakes with a young and vigorous genius. Though his eyelids be scarcely
released from the slumber which sealed them, the exterior world shows itself
to him with a powerful relief, a clearness of contour, and a richness of
colour which are admirable. The moral world opens out its vast perspective,
full of new clarities.
A man gratified by this happiness, unfortunately rare and transient, feels
himself at once more an artist and more a just man; to say all in a word, a
nobler being. But the most singular thing in this exceptional condition of
the spirit and of the senses ___ which I may without exaggeration call
heavenly, if I compare it with the heavy shadows of common and daily existence
___ is that it has not been created by any visible or easily definable cause.
It is the result of a good hygiene and of a wise regimen? Such is the first
explanation which {57} suggests itself; but we are obliged to recognise that
often this marvel, this prodigy, so to say, produces itself as if it were the
effect of a superior and invisible power, of a power exterior to man, after a
period of the abuse of his physical faculties. Shall we say that it is the
reward of assiduous prayer and spiritual ardour? It is certain that a
constant elevation of the desire, a tension of the spiritual forces in a
heavenly direction, would be the most proper regimen for creating this moral
health, so brilliant and so glorious. But what absurd law causes it to
manifest itself (as it sometimes does) after shameful orgies of the
imagination; after a sophistical abuse of reason, which is, to its straight
forward and rational use, that which the tricks of dislocation which some
acrobats have taught themselves to perform are to sane gymnastics? For this
reason I prefer to consider this abnormal condition of the spirit as a true
"grace;" as a magic mirror wherein man is invited to see himself at his best;
that is to say, as that which he should be, and might be; a kind of angelic
excitement; a rehabilitation of the most flattering type. A certain
Spiritualist School, largely represented in England and America, even
considers supernatural phenomena, such as the apparition of phantoms, ghosts,
&c., as manifestations of the Divine Will, ever anxious to awaken in the
spirit of man the memory of invisible truths.
Besides this charming and singular state, where all the forces are
balanced; where the imagination, though enormously powerful, does not drag
after it into perilous adventures the moral sense; when an exquisite
sensibility is no longer tortured by sick nerves, those councillors-in-
ordinary of crime or despair: this marvellous {58} State, I say, has no
prodromal symptoms. It is as unexpected as a ghost. It is a species of
obsession, but of intermittent obsession; from which we should be able to
draw, if we were but wise, the certainty of a nobler existence, and the hope
of attaining to it by the daily exercise of our will. This sharpness of
thought, this enthusiasm of the senses and of the spirit, must in every age
have appeared to man as the chiefest of blessings; and for this reason,
considering nothing but the immediate pleasure he has, without worrying
himself as to whether he were violating the laws of his constitution, he has
sought, in physical science, in pharmacy, in the grossest liquors, in the
subtlest perfumes, in every climate and in every age, the means of fleeing,
were it but for some hours only, his habitaculum of mire, and, as the author
of "Lazare" says, "to carry Paradise at the first assault." Alas! the vices
of man, full of horror as one must suppose them, contain the proof, even
though it were nothing but their infinite expansion, of his hunger for the
Infinite; only, it is a taste which often loses its way. One might take a
proverbial metaphor, "All roads lead to Rome," and apply it to the moral
world: all roads lead to reward or punishment; two forms of eternity. The
mind of man is glutted with passion: he has, if I may use another familiar
phrase, passion to burn. But this unhappy soul, whose natural depravity is
equal to its sudden aptitude, paradoxical enough, for charity and the most
arduous virtues, is full of paradoxes which allow him to turn to other
purposes the overflow of this overmastering passion. He never imagines that
he is selling himself wholesale: he forgets, in his infatuation, that he is
matched against a player more cunning and more strong than {59} he; and that
the Spirit of Evil, though one give him but a hair, will not delay to carry
off the whole head. This visible lord of visible nature ___ I speak of man
___ has, then, wished to create Paradise by chemistry, by fermented drinks;
like a maniac who should replace solid furniture and real gardens by
decorations painted on canvas and mounted on frames. It is in this
degradation of the sense of the Infinite that lies, according to me, the
reason of all guilty excesses; from the solitary and concentrated drunkenness
of the man of letters, who, obliged to seek in opium and anodyne for a
physical suffering, and having thus discovered a well of morbid pleasure, has
made of it, little by little, his sole diet, and as it were the sum of his
spiritual life; down to the most disgusting sot of the suburbs, who, his head
full of flame and of glory, rolls ridiculously in the muck of the roads.
Among the drugs most efficient in creating what I call the artificial
ideal, leaving on one side liquors, which rapidly exite gross frenzy and lay
flat all spiritual force, and the perfumes, whose excessive use, while
rendering more subtle man's imagination, wear out gradually his physical
forces; the two most energetic substances, the most convenient and the most
handy, are hashish and opium. The analysis of the mysterious effect and the
diseased pleasures which these drugs beget, of the inevitable chastisement
which results from their prolonged use, and finally the immorality necessarily
employed in this pursuit of a false ideal, consititutes the subject of this
study.
The subject of opium has been treated already, and in a manner at once so
startling, so scientific, and so poetic that I shall not dare to add a word to
it. I will therefore content {60} myself in another study, with giving an
analysis of this incomparable book, which has never been fully translated into
French. The author, and illustrious man of a powerful and exquisite
imagination, to-day retired and silent, has dared with tragic candour to write
down the delights and the tortures which he once found in opium, and the most
dramatic portion of his book is that where he speaks of the superhuman efforts
of will which he found it necessary to bring into action in order to escape
from the damnation which he had imprudently incurred. To-day I shall only
speak of hashish, and I shall speak of it after numerous investigations and
minute information; extracts from notes or confidences of intelligent men who
had long been addicted to it; only, I shall combine these varied documents
into a sort of monograph, choosing a particular soul, and one easy to explain
and to define, as a type suitable to experiences of this nature. {61}
CHAPTER II
WHAT IS HASHISH?
THE stories of Marco Polo, which have been so unjustly laughed at, as in the
case of some other old travellers, have been verified by men of science, and
deserve or belief. I shall not repeat his story of how, after having
intoxicated them with hashish (whence the word "Assassin") the old Man of the
Mountains shut up in a garden filled with delights those of his youngest
disciples to whom he wished to give an idea of Paradise as an earnest of the
reward, so to speak, of a passive and unreflecting obedience. The reader may
consult, concerning the secret Society of Hashishins, the work of Von Hammer-
Purgstall, and the note of M. Sylvestre de Sacy contained in vol. 16 of
"M<>mories de l'Acad<61>mie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres"; and, with regard
to the etymology of the word "assassin," his letter to the editor of the
"Moniteur" in No. 359 of the year 1809. Herodotus tells us that the Syrians
used to gather grains of hemp and throw red-hot stones upon them; so that it
was like a vapour-bath, more perfumed than that of any Grecian stove; and the
pleasure of it was so acute that it drew cries of joy from them.
Hashish, in effect, comes to us from the East. The exciting properties of
hemp were well known in ancient Egypt, and the use of it is very widely spread
under different names in {62} India, Algeria, and Arabia Felix; but we have
around us, under our eyes, curious examples of the intoxication caused by
vegetable emanations. Without speaking of the children who, having played and
rolled themselves in heaps of cut lucern, often experience singular attacks of
vertigo, it is well known that during the hemp harvest both male and female
workers undergo similar effects. One would say that from the harvest rises a
miasma which troubles their brains despitefully. The head of the reaper is
full of whirlwinds, sometimes laden with reveries; at certain moments the
limbs grow weak and refuse their office. We have heard tell of crises of
somnambulism as being frequent among the Russian peasants, whose cause, they
say, must be attributed to the use of hemp-seed oil in the preparation of
food. Who does not know the extravagant behaviour of hens which have eaten
grains of hemp-seed, and the wild enthusiasm of the horses which the peasants,
at weddings and on the feasts of their patron saints, prepare for a
steeplechase by a ration of hemp-seed, sometimes sprinkled with wine?
Nevertheless, French hemp is unsuitable for preparing hashish, or at least, as
repeated experiments have shown, unfitted to give a drug which is equal in
power to hashish. Hashish, or Indian hemp ("Cannabis indica"), is a plant of
the family of "Urticacea," resembling in every respect the hemp of our
latitudes, except that it does not attain the same height. It possesses very
extraordinary intoxicating properties, which for some years past have
attracted in France the attention of men of science and of the world. It is
more or less highly esteemed according to its different sources: that of
Bengal is the most prized by Europeans; that, however, of Egypt, of
Constantinople, of Persia, and {63} of Algeria enjoys the same properties, but
in an inferior degree.
Hashish (or grass; that is to say, "the" grass "par excellence," as if the
Arabs had wished to define in a single word the "grass" source of all material
pleasures) has different names, according to its composition and the method of
preparation which it has undergone in the country where it has been gathered:
In India, "bhang;" in Africa, "teriaki;" in Algeria and in Arabia Felix, "madjound,"
"&c." It makes considerable difference at what season of the year it is
gathered. It possesses its greatest energy when it is in flower. The
flowering tops are in consequence the only parts employed in the different
preparations of which we are about to speak. The "extrait gras" of hashish, as
the Arabs prepare it, is obtained by boiling the tops of the fresh plant in
butter, with a little water. It is strained, after complete evaporation of
all humidity, and one thus obtains a preparation which has the appearance of a
pomade, in colour greenish yellow, and which possesses a disagreeable odour of
hashish and of rancid butter. Under this form it is employed in small pills
of two to four grammes in weight, but on account of its objectionable smell,
which increases with age, the Arabs conceal the "extrait gras" in sweetmeats.
The most commonly employed of these sweetmeats, "dawamesk," is a mixture of
"extrait gras," sugar, and various other aromatic substances, such as vanilla,
cinnamon, pistachio, almond, musk. Sometimes one even adds a little
cantharides, with an object which has nothing in common with the ordinary
results of hashish. Under this new form hashish has no disagreeable
qualities, and one can take it in a {64} dose of fifteen, twenty, and thirty
grammes, either enveloped in a leaf of "pain <20> chanter" or in a cup of coffee.
The experiments made by Messrs. Smith, Gastinel, and Decourtive were
directed towards the discovery of the active principles of hashish. Despite
their efforts, its chemical combination is still little known, but one usually
attributes its properties to a resinous matter which is found there in the
proportion of about 10 per cent. To obtain this resin the dried plant is
reduced to a course powder, which is then washed several times with alcohol;
this is afterwards partially distilled and evaporated until it reaches the
consistency of an extract; this extract is treated with water, which dissolves
the gummy foreign matter, and the resin then remains in a pure condition.
This product is soft, of a dark green colour, and possesses to a high
degree the characteristic smell of hashish. Five, ten, fifteen centigrammes
are sufficient to produce surprising results. But the haschischine, which may
be administered under the form of chocolate pastilles or small pills mixed
with ginger, has, like the "dawamesk" and the "extrait gras," effects more or less
vigorous, and of an extremely varied nature, according to the individual
temperament and nervous susceptibility of the hashish-eater; and, more than
that, the result varies in the same individual. Sometimes he will experience
an immoderate and irresistible gaiety, sometimes a sense of well-being and of
abundance of life, sometimes a slumber doubtful and thronged with dreams.
There are, however, some phenomena which occur regularly enough; above all, in
the case of persons of a regular temperament and education; there is a kind of
unity in its variety which {65} will allow me to edit, without too much
trouble, this monograph on hashish-drunkenness of which I spoke before.
At Constantinople, in Algeria, and even in France, some people smoke
hashish mixed with tobacco, but then the phenomena in question only occur
under a form much moderated, and, so to say, lazy. I have heard it said that
recently, by means of distillation, an essential oil has been drawn from
hashish which appears to possess a power much more active than all the
preparations hitherto known, but it has not been sufficiently studied for me
to speak with certainty of its results. Is it not superfluous to add that
tea, coffee, and alcoholic drinks are powerful adjuvants which accelerate more
or less the outbreak of this mysterious intoxication?
{66}
CHAPTER III
THE PLAYGROUND OF THE SERAPHIM
WHAT does one experience? What does one see? Marvellous things, is it not
so? Wonderful sights? Is it very beautiful? and very terrible? and very
dangerous? Such are the usual questions which, with a curiosity mingled with
fear, those ignorant of hashish address to its adepts. It is, as it were, the
childish impatience to know, resembling that of those people who have never
quitted their firesides when they meet a man who returns from distant and
unknown countries. They imagine hashish-drunkenness to themselves as a
prodigious country, a vast theatre of sleight-of-hand and of juggling, where
all is miraculous, all unforeseen. ___ That is a prejudice, a complete
mistake. And since for the ordinary run of readers and of questioners the
word "hashish" connotes the idea of a strange and topsy-turvy world, the
expectation of prodigious dreams (it would be better to say hallucinations,
which are, by the way, less frequent than people suppose), I will at once
remark upon the important difference which separates the effects of hashish
from the phenomena of dream. In dream, that adventurous voyage which we
undertake every night, there is something positively miraculous. It is a
miracle whose punctual occurrence has blunted its mystery. The dreams of man
are of two classes. Some, full of his ordinary {67} life, of his
preoccupations, of his desires, of his vices, combine themselves in a manner
more or less bizarre with the objects which he has met in his day's work,
which have carelessly fixed themselves upon the vast canvas of his memory.
That is the natural dream; it is the man himself. But the other kind of
dream, the dream absurd and unforeseen, without meaning or connection with the
character, the life, and the passions of the sleeper: this dream, which I
shall call hieroglyphic, evidently represents the supernatural side of life,
and it is exactly because it is absurd that the ancients believed it to be
divine. As it is inexplicable by natural causes, they attributed to it a
cause external to man, and even to-day, leaving out of account oneiromancers
and the fooleries of a philosophical school which sees in dreams of this type
sometimes a reproach, sometimes a warning; in short, a symbolic and moral
picture begotten in the spirit itself of the sleeper. It is a dictionary
which one must study; a language of which sages may obtain the key.
In the intoxication of hashish there is nothing like this. We shall not go
outside the class of natural dream. The drunkenness, throughout its duration,
it is true, will be nothing but an immense dream, thanks to the intensity of
its colours and the rapidity of its conceptions. But it will always keep the
idiosyncrasy of the individual. The man has desired to dream; the dream will
govern the man. But this dream will be truly the son of its father. The idle
man has taxed his ingenuity to introduce artificially the supernatural into
his life and into his thought; but, after all, and despite the accidental
energy of his experiences, he is nothing but the same man magnified, the same
number raised to a very high power. He {68} is brought into subjection, but,
unhappily for him, it is not by himself; that is to say, by the part of
himself which is already dominant. "He would be angel; he becomes a beast."
Momentarily very powerful, if, indeed, one can give the name of power to what
is merely excessive sensibility without the control which might moderate or
make use of it.
Let it be well understood then, by worldly and ignorant folk, curious of
acquaintance with exceptional joys, that they will find in hashish nothing
miraculous, absolutely nothing but the natural in a superabundant degree. The
brain and the organism upon which hashish operates will only give their
ordinary and individual phenomena, magnified, it is true, both in quantity and
quality, but always faithful to their origin. Man cannot escape the fatality
of his mortal and physical temperament. Hashish will be, indeed, for the
impressions and familiar thoughts of the man, a mirror which magnifies, yet no
more than a mirror.
Here is the drug before your eyes: a little green sweet-meat, about as big
as a nut, with a strange smell; so strange that it arouses a certain
revulsion, and inclinations to nausea ___ as, indeed, any fine and even
agreeable scent, exalted to its maximum strength and (so to say) density,
would do.
Allow me to remark in passing that this proposition can be inverted, and
that the most disgusting and revolting perfume would become perhaps a pleasure
to inhale if it were reduced to its minimum quantity and intensity.
There! there is happiness; heaven in a teaspoon; happiness, with all its
intoxication, all its folly, all its childishness. You can swallow it without
fear; it is not fatal; it will in nowise injure your physical organs. Perhaps
(later on) too {69} frequent an employment of the sorcery will diminish the
strength of your will; perhaps you will be less a man than you are today; but
retribution is so far off, and the nature of the eventual disaster so
difficult to define! What is it that you risk? A little nervous fatigue to-
morrow ___ no more. Do you not every day risk greater punishments for less
reward? Very good then; you have even, to make it act more quickly and
vigorously, imbibed your dose of "extrait gras" in a cup of black coffee. You
have taken care to have the stomach empty, postponing dinner till nine or ten
o'clock, to give full liberty of action to the poison. At the very most you
will take a little soup in an hour's time. You are now sufficiently
provisioned for a long and strange journey; the steamer has whistled, the
sails are trimmed; and you have this curious advantage over ordinary
travellers, that you have no idea where you are going. You have made your
choice; here's to luck!
I presume that you have taken the precaution to choose carefully your
moment for setting out on this adventure. for every perfect debauch demands
perfect leisure. You know, moreover, that hashish exaggerates, not only the
individual, but also circumstances and environment. You have no duties to
fulfil which require punctuality or exactitude; no domestic worries; no
lover's sorrows. One must be careful on such points. Such a disappointment,
an anxiety, an interior monition of a duty which demands your will and your
attention, at some determinate moment, would ring like a funeral bell across
your intoxication and poison your pleasure. Anxiety would become anguish, and
disappointment torture. But if, having observed all these preliminary
conditions, the weather is fine; if your are situated in favourable
surroundings, such as a picturesque {70} landscape or a room beautifully
decorated; and if in particular you have at command a little music, then all
is for the best.
Generally speaking, there are three phases in hashish intoxication, easy
enough to distinguish, and it is not uncommon for beginners to obtain only the
first symptoms of the first phase. You have heard vague chatter about the
marvellous effects of hashish; your imagination has preconceived a special
idea, an ideal intoxication, so to say. You long to know if the reality will
indeed reach the height of your hope; that alone is sufficient to throw you
from the very beginning into an anxious state, favourable enough to the
conquering and enveloping tendency of the poison. Most novices, on their
first initiation, complain of the slowness of the effects: they wait for them
with a puerile impatience, and, the drug not acting quickly enough for their
liking, they bluster long rigmaroles of incredulity, which are amusing enough
for the old hands who know how hashish acts. The first attacks, like the
symptoms of a storm which has held off for a long while, appear and multiply
themselves in the bosom of this very incredulity. At first it is a certain
hilarity, absurdly irresistible, which possesses you. These accesses of
gaiety, without due cause, of which you are almost ashamed, frequently occur
and divide the intervals of stupor, during which you seek in vain to pull
yourself together. The simplest words, the most trivial ideas, take on a new
and strange physiognomy. You are surprised at yourself for having up to now
found them so simple. Incongruous likenesses and correspondences, impossible
to foresee, interminable puns, comic sketches, spout eternally from your
brain. The demon has encompassed you; it is useless to kick against the
pricks of this hilarity, as painful as tickling {71} is! From time to time
you laugh to yourself at your stupidity and your madness, and your comrades,
if you are with others, laugh also, both at your state and their own; but as
they laugh without malice, so you are without resentment.
This gaiety, turn by turn idle or acute, this uneasiness in joy, this
insecurity, this indecision, last, as a rule, but a very short time. Soon the
meanings of ideas become so vague, the conducting thread which binds your
conceptions together becomes so tenuous, that none but your accomplices can
understand you. And, again, on this subject and from this point of view, no
means of verifying it! Perhaps they only think that they understand you, and
the illusion is reciprocal. This frivolity, these bursts of laughter, like
explosions, seem like a true mania, or at least like the delusion of a maniac,
to every man who is not in the same state as yourself. What is more, prudence
and good sense, the regularity of the thoughts of him who witnesses, but has
been careful not to intoxicate himself, rejoice you and amuse you as if they
were a particular form of dementia. The parts are interchanged; his self-
possession drives you to the last limits of irony. How monstrous comic is
this situation, for a man who is enjoying a gaiety incomprehensible for him
who is not placed in the same environment as he! The madman takes pity on the
sage, and from that moment the idea of his superiority begins to dawn on the
horizon of his intellect. Soon it will grow great and broad, and burst like a
meteor.
I was once witness of a scene of this kind which was carried very far, and
whose grotesqueness was only intelligible to those who were acquainted, at
least by means of observation of others, with the effects of the substance and
{72} the enormous difference of diapason which it creates between two
intelligences apparently equal. A famous musician, who was ignorant of the
properties of hashish, who perhaps had never heard speak of it, finds himself
in the midst of a company, several persons of which had taken a portion. They
try to make him understand the marvellous effects of it; at these prodigious
yarns he smiles courteously, by complaisance, like a man who is willing to
play the fool for a minute or two. His contempt is quickly divined by these
spirits, sharpened by the poison, and their laughter wounds him; these bursts
of joy, this playing with words, these altered countenances ___ all this
unwholesome atmosphere irritates him, and forces him to exclaim sooner,
perhaps, than he would have wished that this is a poor "r<>le," and that,
moreover, it must be very tiring for those who have undertaken it.
The comicality of it lightened them all like a flash; their joy boiled
over. "This "r<>le" may be good for you," said he, "but for me, no." "It is
good for us; that is all we care about," replies egoistically one of the
revellers.
Not knowing whether he is dealing with genuine madmen or only with people
who are pretending to be mad, our friend thinks that the part of discretion is
to go away; but somebody shuts the door and hides the key. Another, kneeling
before him, asks his pardon, in the name of the company, and declares
insolently, but with tears, that despite his mental inferiority, which perhaps
excites a little pity, they are all filled with a profound friendship for him.
He makes up his mind to remain, and even condescends, after pressure, to play
a little music.
But the sounds of the violin, spreading themselves through {73} the room
like a new contagion, stab -- the word is not too strong ___ first one of the
revellers, then another. There burst forth deep and raucous sighs, sudden
sobs, streams of silent tears. The frightened musician stops, and,
approaching him whose ecstasy is noisiest, asks him if he suffers much, and
what must be done to relieve him. One of the persons present, a man of common
sense, suggests lemonade and acids; but the "sick man," his eyes shining with
ecstasy, looks on them both with ineffable contempt. To wish to cure a man
"sick of too much life, "sick" of joy!
As this anecdote shows, goodwill towards men has a sufficiently large place
in the feelings excited by hashish: a soft, idle, dumb benevolence which
springs from the relaxation of the nerves.
In support of this observation somebody once told me an adventure which had
happened to him in this state of intoxication, and as he preserved a very
exact memory of his feelings I understood perfectly into what grotesque and
inextricable embarrassment this difference of diapason and of pity of which I
was just speaking had thrown him. I do not remember if the man in question
was at his first or his second experiment; had he taken a dose which was a
little too strong, or was it that the hashish had produced, without any
apparent cause, effects much more vigorous than the ordinary ___ a not
infrequent occurrence?
He told me that across the scutcheon of his joy, this supreme delight of
feeling oneself full of life and believing oneself full of genius, there had
suddenly smitten the bar sinister of terror. At first dazzled by the beauty
of his sensations, he had suddenly fallen into fear of them. He had asked
himself the question: "What would become of my intelligence {74} and of my
bodily organs if this state" (which he took for a supernatural state) "went on
always increasing; if my nerves became continually more and more delicate?"
By the power of enlargement which the spiritual eye of the patient possesses,
this fear must be an unspeakable torment. "I was," he said, "like a runaway
horse galloping towards an abyss, wishing to stop and being unable to do so.
Indeed, it was a frightful ride, and my thought, slave of circumstance, of
"milieu," of accident, and of all that may be implied by the word chance, had
taken a turn of pure, absolute rhapsody. 'It is too late, it is too late!' I
repeated to myself ceaselessly in despair. When this mood, which seemed to me
to last for an infinite time, and which I daresay only occupied a few minutes,
changed, when I thought that at last I might dive into the ocean of happiness
so dear to Easterns which succeeds this furious phase, I was overwhelmed by a
new misfortune; a new anxiety, trivial enough, puerile enough, tumbled upon
me. I suddenly remembered that I was invited to dinner, to an evening party
of respectable people. I foresaw myself in the midst of a well-behaved and
discreet crowd, every one master of himself, where I should be obliged to
conceal carefully the state of my mind while under the glare of many lamps. I
was fairly certain of success, but at the same time my heart almost gave up at
the thought of the efforts of will which it would be necessary to bring into
line in order to win. By some accident, I know not what, the words of the
Gospel, "Woe unto him by whom offences come!" leapt to the surface of my
memory, and in the effort to forget them, in concentrating myself upon
forgetting them, I repeated them to myself ceaselessly. My catastrophe, for
it was indeed a catastrophe, {75} then took a gigantic shape: despite my
weakness, I resolved on vigorous action, and went to consult a chemist, for I
did not know the antidotes, and I wished to go with a free and careless spirit
to the circle where my duty called me; but on the threshold of the shop a
sudden thought seized me, haunted me, forced me to reflect. As I passed I had
just seen myself in the looking-glass of a shop-front, and my face had
startled me. This paleness, these lips compressed, these starting eyes! ___ I
shall frighten this good fellow, I said to myself, and for what a trifle! Add
to that the ridicule which I wished to avoid, the fear of finding people in
the shop. But my sudden goodwill towards this unknown apothecary mastered all
my other feelings. I imagined to myself this man as being as sensitive as I
myself was at this dreadful moment, and as I imagined also that his ear and
his soul must, like my own, tremble at the slightest noise, I resolved to go
in on tiptoe. 'It would be impossible,' I said to myself, 'to show too much
discretion in dealing with a man on whose kindness I am about to intrude.'
Then I resolved to deaden the sound of my voice, like the noise of my steps.
You know it, this hashish voice: grave, deep, guttural; not unlike that of
habitual opium-eaters. The result was the exact contrary of my intention;
anxious to reassure the chemist, I frightened him. He was in no way
acquainted with this illness; had never even heard of it; yet he looked at me
with a curiosity strongly mingled with mistrust. Did he take me for a madman,
a criminal, or a beggar? Nor the one nor the other, doubtless, but all these
absurd ideas ploughed through my brain. I was obliged to explain to him at
length (what weariness!) what the hemp sweetmeat was and what purpose {76} it
served, ceaselessly repeating to him that there was no danger, that there was,
so far as he was concerned, no reason to be alarmed, and that all that I asked
was a method of mitigating or neutralising it, frequently insisting upon the
sincere disappointment I felt in troubling him. When I had quite finished (I
beg you well to understand all the humiliation which these words contained for
me) he asked me simply to go away. Such was the reward of my exaggerated
thoughtfulness and goodwill. I went to my evening party; I scandalised
nobody. No one guessed the superhuman struggles which I had to make to be
like other people; but I shall never forget the tortures of an ultra-poetic
intoxication constrained by decorum and antagonised by duty."
Although naturally prone to sympathise with every suffering which is born
of the imagination, I could not prevent myself from laughing at this story.
The man who told it to me is not cured. He continued to crave at the hands of
the cursed confection the excitement which wisdom finds in itself; but as he
is a prudent and settled man, a man of the world, he has diminished the doses,
which has permitted him to increase their frequency. He will taste later the
rotten fruit of his "prudence"!
I return to the regular development of the intoxication. After this first
phase of childish gaiety there is, as it were, a momentary relaxation; but new
events soon announce themselves by a sensation of coolth at the extremities
___ which may even become, in the case of certain persons, a bitter cold ___
and a great weakness in all the limbs. You have then "butter fingers"; and in
your head, in all your being, you feel an embarrassing stupor and
stupefaction. Your eyes {77} start from your head; it is as if they were
drawn in every direction by implacable ecstasy. Your face is deluged with
paleness; the lips draw themselves in, sucked into the mouth with that
movement of breathlessness which characterises the ambition of a man who is
the prey of his own great schemes, oppressed by enormous thoughts, or taking a
long breath preparatory to a spring. The throat closes itself, so to say; the
palate is dried up by a thirst which it would be infinitely sweet to satisfy,
if the delights of laziness were not still more agreeable, and in opposition
to the least disturbance of the body. Deep but hoarse sighs escape from your
breast, as if the old bottle, your body, could not bear the passionate
activity of the new wine, your new soul. From one time to another a spasm
transfixes you and makes you quiver, like those muscular discharges which at
the end of a day's work or on a stormy night precede definitive slumber.
Before going further I should like, "<22> propos" of this sensation of coolth of
which I spoke above, to tell another story which will serve to show to what
point the effects, even the purely physical effects, may vary according to the
individual. This time it is a man of letters who speaks, and in some parts of
his story one will (I think) be able to find the indications of the literary
temperament. "I had taken," he told me, "a moderated dose of "extrait gras,"
and all was going as well as possible. The crisis of gaiety had not lasted
long, and I found myself in a state of languor and wonderment which was almost
happiness. I looked forward, then, to a quiet and unworried evening:
unfortunately chance urged me to go with a friend to the theatre. I took the
heroic course, resolved to overcome my immense desire to to be idle and
motionless. All {78} the carriages in my district were engaged; I was obliged
to walk a long distance amid the discordant noises of the traffic, the stupid
conversation of the passers-by, a whole ocean of triviality. My finger-tips
were already slightly cool; soon this turned into a most acute cold, as if I
had plunged both hands into a bucket of ice-water. But this was not
suffering; this needle-sharp sensation stabbed me rather like a pleasure. Yet
it seemed to me that this cold enveloped me more and more as the interminable
journey went on. I asked two or three times of the person with whom I was if
it was actually very cold. He replied to me that, on the contrary, the
temperature was more than warm. Installed at last in the room, shut up in the
box which had been given me, with three or four hours of repose in front of
me, I thought myself arrived at the Promised Land. The feelings on which I
had trampled during the journey with all the little energy at my disposal now
burst in, and I give myself up freely to my silent frenzy. The cold ever
increased, and yet I saw people lightly clad, and even wiping their foreheads
with an air of weariness. This delightful idea took hold of me, that I was a
privileged man, to whom alone had been accorded the right to feel cold in
summer in the auditorium of a theatre. This cold went on increasing until it
became alarming; yet I was before all dominated by my curiosity to know to
what degree it could possibly sink. At last it came to such a point, it was
so complete, so general, that all my ideas froze, so to speak; I was a piece
of thinking ice. I imagined myself as a statue carved in a block of ice, and
this mad hallucination made me so proud, excited in me such a feeling of moral
well-being, that I despair of defining it to you. What added to my abominable
{79} enjoyment was the certainty that all the other people present were
ignorant of my nature and of the superiority that I had over them, and then
with the pleasure of thinking that my companion never suspected for a moment
with what strange feelings I was filled, I clasped the reward of my
dissimulation, and my extraordinary pleasure was a veritable secret.
"Besides, I had scarcely entered the box when my eyes had been struck with
an impression of darkness which seemed to me to have some relationship with
the idea of cold; it is, however, possible that these two ideas had lent each
other strength. You know that hashish always invokes magnificences of light,
splendours of colour, cascades of liquid gold; all light is sympathetic to it,
both that which streams in sheets and that which hangs like spangles to points
and roughnesses; the candelabra of "salons," the wax candles that people burn in
May, the rosy avalanches of sunset. It seems that the miserable chandelier
spread a light far too insignificant to quench this insatiable thirst of
brilliance. I thought, as I told you, that I was entering a world of shadows,
which, moreover, grew gradually thicker, while I dreamt of the Polar night and
the eternal winter. As to the stage, it was a stage consecrated to the comic
Muse; that alone was luminous; infinitely small and far off, very far, like a
landscape seen through the wrong end of a telescope. I will not tell you that
I listened to the actors; you know that that is impossible. From time to time
my thoughts snapped up on the wing a fragment of a phrase, and like a clever
dancing-girl used it as a spring-board to leap into far-distant reveries. You
might suppose that a play heard in this manner would lack logic and coherence.
Undeceive yourself! I discovered an exceeding subtle sense in {80} the drama
created by my distraction. Nothing jarred on me, and I resembled a little
that poet who, seeing "Esther" played for the first time, found it quite natural
that Haman should make a declaration of love to the queen. It was, as you
guess, the moment where he throws himself at the feet of Esther to beg pardon
of his crime. If all plays were listened to on these lines they all, even
those of Racine, would gain enormously. The actors seemed to me exceedingly
small, and bounded by a precise and clear-cut line, like the figures in
Meissonier's pictures. I saw distinctly not only the most minute details of
their costumes, their patterns, seams, buttons, and so on, but also the line
of separation between the false forehead and the real; the white, the blue,
and the red, and all the tricks of make-up; and these Lilliputians were
clothed about with a cold and magical clearness, like that which a very clean
glass adds to an oil-painting. When at last I was able to emerge from this
cavern of frozen shadows, and when, the interior phantasmagoria being
dissipated, I came to myself, I experienced a greater degree of weariness than
prolonged and difficult work has ever caused me."
It is, in fact, at this period of the intoxication that is manifested a new
delicacy, a superior sharpness in each of the senses: smell, sight, hearing,
touch join equally in this onward march; the eyes behold the Infinite; the ear
perceives almost inaudible sounds in the midst of the most tremendous tumult.
It is then that the hallucinations begin; external objects take on wholly and
successively most strange appearances; they are deformed and transformed.
Then ___ the ambiguities, the misunderstandings, and the transpositions of
ideas! Sounds cloak themselves with colour; colours blossom {81} into music.
That, you will say, is nothing but natural. Every poetic brain in its
healthy, normal state, readily conceives these analogies. But I have already
warned the reader that there is nothing of the positively supernatural in
hashish intoxication; only those analogies possess an unaccustomed liveliness;
they penetrate and they envelop; they overwhelm the mind with their
masterfulness. Musical notes become numbers; and if your mind is gifted with
some mathematical aptitude, the harmony to which you listen, while keeping its
voluptuous and sensual character, transforms itself into a vast rhythmical
operation, where numbers beget numbers, and whose phases and generation follow
with an inexplicable ease and an agility which equals that of the person
playing.
It happens sometimes that the sense of personality disappears, and that the
objectivity which is the birthright of Pantheist poets develops itself in you
so abnormally that the contemplation of exterior objects makes you forget your
own existence and confound yourself with them. Your eye fixes itself upon a
tree, bent by the wind into an harmonious curve; in some seconds that which in
the brain of a poet would only be a very natural comparison becomes in yours a
reality. At first you lend to the tree your passions, your desire, or your
melancholy; its creakings and oscillations become yours, and soon you are the
tree. In the same way with the bird which hovers in the abyss of azure: at
first it represents symbolically your own immortal longing to float above
things human; but soon you are the bird itself. Suppose, again, you are
seated smoking; your attention will rest a little too long upon the bluish
clouds which breathe forth from your pipe; the idea of a slow, continuous,
eternal evaporation will possess itself of {82} your spirit, and you will soon
apply this idea to your own thoughts, to your own apparatus of thought. By a
singular ambiguity, by a species of transposition or intellectual barter, you
feel yourself evaporating, and you will attribute to your pipe, in which you
feel yourself crouched and pressed down like the tobacco, the strange faculty
of smoking you!
Luckily, this interminable imagination has only lasted a minute. For a
lucid interval, seized with a great effort, has allowed you to look at the
clock. But another current of ideas bears you away; it will roll you away for
yet another minute in its living whirlwind, and this other minute will be an
eternity. For the proportion of time and being are completely disordered by
the multitude and intensity of your feelings and ideas. One may say that one
lives many times the space of a man's life during a single hour. Are you not,
then, like a fantastic novel, but alive instead of being written? There is no
longer any equation between the physical organs and their enjoyments; and it
is above all on this account that arises the blame which one must give to this
dangerous exercise in which liberty is forfeited.
When I speak of hallucinations the word must not be taken in its strictest
sense: a very important shade of difference distinguishes pure hallucination,
such as doctors have often have occasion to study, from the hallucination, or
rather of the misinterpretation of the senses, which arises in the mental
state caused by the hashish. In the first case the hallucination is sudden,
complete, and fatal; beside which, it finds neither pretext nor excuse in the
exterior world. The sick man sees a shape or hears sounds where there are not
any. In the second case, where hallucination is progressive, {83} almost
willed, and it does not become perfect, it only ripens under the action of
imagination. Finally, it has a pretext. A sound will speak, utter distinct
articulations; but there was a sound there. The enthusiast eye of the hashish
drunkard will see strange forms, but before they were strange and monstrous
these forms were simple and natural. The energy, the almost speaking
liveliness of hallucination in this form of intoxication in no way invalidates
this original difference: the one has root in the situation, and, at the
present time, the other has not. Better to explain this boiling over of the
imagination, this maturing of the dream, and this poetic childishness to which
a hashish-intoxicated brain is condemned, I will tell yet another anecdote.
This time it is not an idle young man who speaks, nor a man of letters. It is
a woman; a woman no longer in her first youth; curious, with an excitable
mind, and who, having yielded to the wish to make acquaintance with the
poison, describes thus for another woman the most important of her phases. I
transcribe literally.
"However strange and new may be the sensations which I have drawn from my
twelve hours' madness ___ was it twelve or twenty? in sooth, I cannot tell ___
I shall never return to it. The spiritual excitement is too lively, the
fatigue which results from it too great; and, to say all in a word, I find in
this return to childhood something criminal. Ultimately (after many
hesitations) I yielded to curiosity, since it was a folly shared with old
friends, where I saw no great harm in lacking a little dignity. But first of
all I must tell you that this curs<72>d hashish is a most treacherous substance.
Sometimes one thinks oneself recovered from the intoxication; but it is only a
deceitful peace. There are moments of rest, and then recrudescences. {84}
Thus, before ten o'clock in the evening I found myself in one of these
momentary states; I thought myself escaped from this superabundance of life
which had caused me so much enjoyment, it is true, but which was not without
anxiety and fear. I sat down to supper with pleasure, like one in that state
of irritable fatigue which a long journey produces; for till then, for
prudence sake, I had abstained from eating; but even before I rose from the
table my delirium had caught me up again as a cat catches a mouse, and the
poison began anew to play with my poor brain. Although my house is quite
close to that of our friends, and although there was a carriage at my
disposal, I felt myself so overwhelmed with the necessity of dreaming, of
abandoning myself to this irresistible madness, that I accepted joyfully their
offer to keep me till the morning. You know the castle; you know that they
have arranged, decorated, and fitted with conveniences in the modern style all
that part in which they ordinarily live, but that the part which is usually
unoccupied has been left as it was, with its old style and its old adornments.
They determined to improvise for me a bedroom in this part of the castle, and
for this purpose they chose the smallest room, a kind of boudoir, which,
although somewhat faded and decrepit, is none the less charming. I must
describe it for you as well as I can, so that you may understand the strange
vision which I underwent, a vision which fulfilled me for a whole night,
without ever leaving me the leisure to note the flight of the hours.
"This boudoir is very small, very narrow. From the height of the cornice
the ceiling arches itself to a vault; the walls are covered with narrow, long
mirrors, separated by {85} panels, where landscapes, in the easy style of the
decorations, are painted. On the frieze on the four walls various allegorical
figures are represented, some in attitudes of repose, others running or
flying; above them are brilliant birds and flowers. Behind the figures a
trellis rises, painted so as to deceive the eye, and following naturally the
curve of the ceiling; this ceiling is gilded. All the interstices between the
woodwork and the trellis and the figures are then covered with gold, and at
the centre the gold is only interrupted by the geometrical network of the
false trellis; you see that that resembles somewhat a very distinguished cage,
a very fine cage for a very big bird. I must add that the night was very
fine, very clear, and the moon brightly shining; so much so that even after I
had put out my candle all this decoration remained visible, not illuminated by
my mind's eye, as you might think, but by this lovely night, whose lights
clung to all this broidery of gold, of mirrors, and of patchwork colours.
"I was at first much astonished to see great spaces spread themselves out
before me, beside me, on all sides. There were limpid rivers, and green
meadows admiring their own beauty in calm waters: you may guess here the
effect of the panels reflected by the mirrors. In raising my eyes I saw a
setting sun, like molten metal that grows cold. It was the gold of the
ceiling. But the trellis put in my mind the idea that I was in a kind of
cage, or in a house open on all sides upon space, and that I was only
separated from all these marvels by the bars of my magnificent prison. In the
first place I laughed at the illusion which had hold of me; but the more I
looked the more its magic grew great, the more it took life, clearness, and
masterful reality. From that moment {86} the idea of being shut up mastered
my mind, without, I must admit, too seriously interfering with the varied
pleasures which I drew from the spectacle spread around and above me. I
thought of myself as of one imprisoned for long, for thousands of years
perhaps, in this sumptuous cage, among these fairy pastures, between these
marvellous horizons. I imagined myself the Sleeping Beauty; dreamt of an
expiation that I must undergo, of deliverance to come. Above my head
fluttered brilliant tropical birds, and as my ear caught the sound of the
little bells on the necks of the horses which were travelling far away on the
main road, the two senses pooling their impressions in a single idea, I
attributed to the birds this mysterious brazen chant; I imagined that they
sang with a metallic throat. Evidently they were talking to me, and chanting
hymns to my captivity. Gambolling monkeys, buffoon-like satyrs, seemed to
amuse themselves at this supine prisoner, doomed to immobility; yet all the
gods of mythology looked upon me with an enchanting smile, as if to encourage
me to bear the sorcery with patience, and all their eyes slid to the corner of
their eyelids as if to fix themselves on me. I came to the conclusion that if
some faults of the olden time, some sins unknown to myself, had made necessary
this temporary punishment, I could yet count upon an overriding goodness,
which, while condemning me to a prudent course, would offer me truer pleasures
than the dull pleasures which filled our youth. You see that moral
considerations were not absent from my dream; but I must admit that the
pleasure of contemplating these brilliant forms and colours and of thinking
myself the centre of a fantastic drama frequently absorbed all my other
thoughts. This stayed long, very {87} long. Did it last till morning? I do
not know. All of a sudden I saw the morning sun taking his bath in my room.
I experienced a lively astonishment, and despite all the efforts of memory
that I have been able to make I have never been able to assure myself whether
I had slept or whether I had patiently undergone a delicious insomnia. A
moment ago, Night; now, Day. And yet I had lived long; oh, very long! The
notion of Time, or rather the standard of Time, being abolished, the whole
night was only measurable by the multitude of my thoughts. So long soever as
it must have appeared to me from this point of view, it also seemed to me that
it had only lasted some seconds; or even that it had not taken place in
eternity.
"I do not say anything to you of my fatigue; it was immense. They say that
the enthusiasm of poets and creative artists resembles what I experienced,
though I have always believed that those persons on whom is laid the task of
stirring us must be endowed with a most calm temperament. But if the poetic
delirium resembles that which a teaspoonful of hashish confection procured for
me I cannot but think that the pleasures of the public cost the poets dear,
and it is not without a certain well-being, a prosaic satisfaction, that I at
last find myself at home, in my intellectual home; I mean, in real life."
There is a woman, evidently reasonable; but we shall only make use of her
story to draw from it some useful notes, which will complete this very
compressed summary of the principal feelings which hashish begets.
She speaks of supper as of a pleasure arriving at the right moment; at the
moment where a momentary remission, {88} momentary for all its pretence of
finality, permitted her to go back to real life. Indeed, there are, as I have
said, intermissions, and deceitful calms, and hashish often brings about a
voracious hunger, nearly always an excessive thirst. Only, dinner or supper,
instead of bringing about a permanent rest, creates this new attack, the
vertiginous crisis of which this lady complains, and which was followed by a
series of enchanting visions lightly tinged with affright, to which she so
assented, resigning herself with the best grace in the world. The tyrannical
hunger and thirst of which we speak are not easily assayed without
considerable trouble. For the man feels himself so much above material
things, or rather he is so much overwhelmed by his drunkenness, that he must
develop a lengthy spell of courage to move a bottle or a fork.
The definitive crisis determined by the digestion of food is, in fact, very
violent; it is impossible to struggle against it. And such a state would not
be supportable if it lasted too long, and if it did not soon give place to
another phase of intoxication, which in the case above cited interprets itself
by splendid visions, tenderly terrifying, and at the same time full of
consolations. This new state is what the Easterns call "Kaif." It is no longer
the whirlwind or the tempest; it is a calm and motionless bliss, a glorious
resign<EFBFBD>dness. Since long you have not been your own master; but you trouble
yourself no longer about that. Pain, and the sense of time, have disappeared;
or if sometimes they dare to show their heads, it is only as transfigured by
the master feeling, and they are then, as compared with their ordinary form,
what poetic melancholy is to prosaic grief.
But above all let us remark that in this lady's account {89} (and it is for
this purpose that I have transcribed it) it is but a bastard hallucination,
and owes its being to the objects of the external world. The spirit is but a
mirror where the environment is reflected, strangely transformed. Then,
again, we see intruding what I should be glad to call moral hallucination; the
patient thinks herself condemned to expiate somewhat; but the feminine
temperament, which is ill-fitted to analyse, did not permit her to notice the
strangely optimistic character of the aforesaid hallucination. The benevolent
look of the gods of Olympus is made poetical by a varnish essentially due to
hashish. I will not say that this lady has touched the fringe of remorse, but
her thoughts, momentarily turned in the direction of melancholy and regret,
have been quickly coloured by hope. This is an observation which we shall
again have occasion to verify.
She speaks of the fatigue of the morrow. In fact, this is great. But it
does not show itself at once, and when you are obliged to acknowledge its
existence you do so not without surprise: for at first, when you are really
assured that a new day has arisen on the horizon of your life, you experience
an extraordinary sense of well-being; you seem to enjoy a marvellous lightness
of spirit. But you are scarcely on your feet when a forgotten fragment of
intoxication follows you and pulls you back; it is the badge of your recent
slavery. Your enfeebled legs only conduct you with caution, and you fear at
every moment to break yourself, as if you were made of porcelain. A wondrous
languor ___ there are those who pretend that it does not lack charm ___
possesses itself of your spirit, and spreads itself across your faculties as a
fog spreads itself in a meadow. There, then, you are, for some hours yet,
{90} incapable of work, of action, and of energy. It is the punishment of an
impious prodigality in which you have squandered your nervous force. You have
dispersed your personality to the four winds of heaven ___ and now, what
trouble to gather it up again and concentrate it!
{91}
CHAPTER IV
THE MAN-GOD
IT is time to leave on one side all this jugglery, these big marionettes, born
of the smoke of childish brains. Have we not to speak of more serious things
___ of modifications of our human opinions, and, in a word, of the "morale" of
hashish?
Up to the present I have only made an abridged monograph on the
intoxication; I have confined myself to accentuating its principal
characteristics. But what is more important, I think, for the spiritually
minded man, is to make acquaintance with the action of the poison upon the
spiritual part of man; that is to say, the enlargement, the deformation, and
the exaggeration of his habitual sentiments and his moral perception, which
present then, in an exceptional atmosphere, a true phenomenon of refraction.
The man who, after abandoning himself for a long timr to opium or to
hashish, has been able, weak as he has become by the habit of bondage, to find
the energy necessary to shake off the chain, appears to me like an escaped
prisoner. He inspires me with more admiration than does that prudent man who
has never fallen, having always been careful to avoid the temptation. The
English, in speaking of opium-eaters, often employ terms which can only appear
excessive to those innocent persons who do not understand the horrors of this
{92} downfall ___ "enchained, fettered, enslaved." Chains, in fact, compared to
which all others ___ chains of duty, chains of lawless love ___ are nothing
but webs of gauze and spider tissues. Horrible marriage of man with himself!
"I had become a bounden slave in the trammels of opium, and my labours and my
orders had taken a colouring from my dreams," says the husband of Ligeia. But
in how many marvellous passages does Edgar Poe, this incomparable poet, this
never-refuted philosopher, whom one must always quote in speaking of the
mysterious maladies of the soul, describe the dark and clinging splendours of
opium! The lover of the shining Berenice, Egoeus, the metaphysician, speaks
of an alteration of his faculties which compels him to give an abnormal and
monstrous value to the simplest phenomenon.
"To muse for long unwearied hours, with my attention riveted to some
frivolous device on the margin or in the typography of a book; to become
absorbed, for the better part of a summer's day, in a quaint shadow falling
aslant upon the tapestry or upon the floor; to lose myself, for an entire
night, in watching the steady flame of a lamp, or the embers of a fire; to
dream away whole days over the perfume of a flower; to repeat monotonously
some common word, until the sound, by dint of frequent repetition, ceased to
convey any idea whatever to the mind; to lose all sense of motion or physical
existence, by means of absolute bodily quiescence long and obstinately
persevered in: such were a few of the most common and least pernicious
vagaries induced by a condition of the mental faculties, not, indeed,
altogether unparalleled, but certainly bidding defiance to anything like
analysis or explanation." {93}
And the nervous Augustus Bedloe, who every morning before his walk swallows
his dose of opium, tells us that the principal prize which he gains from this
daily poisoning is to take in everything, even in the most trivial thing, an
exaggerated interest.
"In the meantime the morphine had its customary effect ___ that of enduing
all the external world with an intensity of interest. In the quivering of a
leaf ___ in the hue of a blade of grass ___ in the shape of a trefoil ___ in
the humming of a bee ___ in the gleaming of a dew-drop ___ in the breathing of
the wind ___ in the faint odours that came from the forest ___ there came a
whole universe of suggestion ___ a gay and motley train of rhapsodical and
immethodical thought."
Thus expresses himself, by the mouth of his puppets, the master of the
horrible, the prince of mystery. These two characteristics of opium are
perfectly applicable to hashish. In the one case, as in the other, the
intelligence, formerly free, becomes a slave; but the word "rapsodique," which
defines so well a train of thought suggested and dictated by the exterior
world and the accident of circumstance, is in truth truer and more terrible in
the case of hashish. Here the reasoning power is no more than a wave, at the
mercy of every current and the train of thought is infinitely more accelerated
and more "rapsodique;" that is to say, clearly enough, I think, that hashish is,
in its immediate effect, much more vehement than opium, much more inimical to
regular life; in a word, much more upsetting. I do not know if ten years of
intoxication by hashish would being diseases equal to those caused by ten
years of opium regimen; I say that, for the moment, and for the morrow,
hashish has more fatal results. One is a soft-spoken enchantress; the other,
a raging demon. {94}
I wish in this last part to define and to analyse the moral ravage caused
by this dangerous and delicious practice; a ravage so great, a danger so
profound, that those who return from the fight but lightly wounded appear to
me like heroes escaped from the cave of a multiform Proteus, or like Orpheus,
conquerors of Hell. You may take, if you will, this form of language for an
exaggerated metaphor, but for my part I will affirm that these exciting
poisons seem to me not only one of the most terrible and the most sure means
which the Spirit of Darkness uses to enlist and enslave wretched humanity, but
even one of the most perfect of his avatars.
This time, to shorten my task and make my analysis the clearer, instead of
collecting scattered anecdotes I will dress a single puppet in a mass of
observation. I must, then, invent a soul to suit my purpose. In his
"Confessions" De Quincey rightly states that opium, instead of sending man to
sleep, excites him; but only excites him in his natural path, and that
therefore to judge of the marvels of opium it would be ridiculous to try it
upon a seller of oxen, for such an one will dream of nothing but cattle and
grass. Now I am not going to describe the lumbering fancies of a hashish-
intoxicated stockbreeder. Who would read them with pleasure, or consent to
read them at all? To idealise my subject I must concentrate all its rays into
a single circle and polarise them; and the tragic circle where I will gather
them together will be, as I have said, a man after my own heart; something
analogous to what the eighteenth century called the "homme sensible," to what
the romantic school named the "homme incompris," and to what family folk and the
mass of "bourgeoisie" generally brand with the epithet "original." A
constitution half nervous, half {95} bilious, is the most favourable to the
evolutions of an intoxication of this kind. Let us add a cultivated mind,
exercised in the study of form and colour, a tender heart, wearied by
misfortune, but still ready to be made young again; we will go, if you please,
so far as to admit past errors, and, as a natural result of these in an easily
excitable nature, if not positive remorse, at least regret for time profaned
and ill-spent. A taste for metaphysics, an acquaintance with the different
hypotheses of philosophy of human destiny, will certainly not be useless
conditions; and, further, that love of virtue, of abstract virtue, stoical or
mystic, which is set forth in all the books upon which modern childishness
feeds as the highest summit to which a chosen soul may attain. If one adds to
all that a great refinement of sense ___ and if I omitted it it was because I
thought it supererogatory ___ I think that I have gathered together the
general elements which are most common in the modern "homme sensible" of what
one might call the lowest common measure of originality. Let us see now what
will become of this individuality pushed to its extreme by hashish. let us
follow this progress of the human imagination up to its last and most splendid
serai; up to the point of the belief of the individual in his own divinity.
If you are one of these souls your innate love of form and colour will find
from the beginning an immense banquet in the first development of your
intoxication. Colours will take an unaccustomed energy and smite themselves
within your brain with the intensity of triumph. Delicate, mediocre, or even
bad as they may be, the paintings upon the ceilings will clothe themselves
with a tremendous life. The coarsest papers which {96} cover the walls of
inns will open out like magnificent dioramas. Nymphs with dazzling flesh will
look at you with great eyes deeper and more limpid than are the sky and sea.
Characters of antiquity, draped in their priestly or soldierly costumes, will,
by a single glance, exchange with you most solemn confidences. The snakiness
of the lines is a definitely intelligible language where you read the
sorrowing and the passion of their souls. Nevertheless a mysterious but only
temporary state of the mind develops itself; the profoundness of life, hedged
by its multiple problems, reveals itself entirely in the sight, however
natural and trivial it may be, that one has under one's eyes; the first-come
object becomes a speaking symbol. Fourier and Swedenborg, one with his
analogies, the other with his correspondences, have incarnated themselves in
all things vegetable and animal which fall under your glance, and instead of
touching by voice they indoctrinate you by form and colour. The understanding
of the allegory takes within you proportions unknown to yourself. We shall
note in passing that allegory, that so spiritual type of art, which the
clumsiness of its painters has accustomed us to despise, but which is realy
one of the most primitive and natural forms of poetry, regains its divine
right in the intelligence which is enlightened by intoxication. Then the
hashish spreads itself over all life; as it were, the magic varnish. It
colours it with solemn hues and lights up all its profundity; jagged
landscapes, fugitive horizons, perspectives of towns whitened by the corpse-
like lividity of storm or illumined by the gathered ardours of the sunset;
abysses of space, allegorical of the abyss of time; the dance, the gesture or
the speech of the actors, should you be in a theatre; the first-come phrase if
your eyes fall upon a {97} book; in a word, all things; the universality of
beings stands up before you with a new glory unsuspected until then. The
grammar, the dry grammar itself, becomes something like a book of "barbarous
names of evocation." The words rise up again, clothed with flesh and bone;
the noun, in its solid majesty; the adjective's transparent robe which clothes
and colours it with a shining web; and the verb, archangel of motion which
sets swinging the phrase. Music, that other language dear to the idle or the
profound souls who seek repose by varying their work, speaks to you of
yourself, and recites to you the poem of your life; it incarnates in you, and
you swoon away in it. It speaks your passion, not only in a vague, ill-
defined manner, as it does in your careless evenings at the opera, but in a
substantial and positive manner, each movement of the rhythm marking a
movement understood of your soul, each note transforming itself into Word, and
the whole poem entering into your brain like a dictionary endowed with life.
It must not be supposed that all these phenomena fall over each other pell-
mell in the spirit, with a clamorous accent of reality and the disorder of
exterior life; the interior eye transforms all, and gives to all the
complement of beauty which it lacks, so that it may be truly worthy to give
pleasure. It is also to this essentially voluptuous and sensual phase that
one must refer the love of limpid water, running or stagnant, which develops
itself so astonishingly in the brain-drunkenness of some artists. The mirror
has become a pretext for this reverie, which resembles a spiritual thirst
joined to the physical thirst which dries the throat, and of which I have
spoken above. The flowing waters, the sportive waters; the musical
waterfalls; {98} the blue vastness of the sea; all roll, sing, leap with a
charm beyond words. The water opens its arms to you like a true enchantress;
and though I do not much believe in the maniacal frenzies caused by hashish, I
should not like to assert that the contemplation of some limpid gulf would be
altogether without danger for a soul in love with space and crystal, and that
the old fable of Undine might not become a tragic reality for the enthusiast.
I think I have spoken enough of the gigantic growth of space and time; two
ideas always connected, always woven together, but which at such a time the
spirit faces without sadness and without fear. It looks with a certain
melancholy delight across deep years, and boldly dives into infinite
perspectives. You have thoroughly well understood, I suppose, that this
abnormal and tyrannical growth may equally apply to all sentiments and to all
ideas. Thus, I have given, I think, a sufficiently fair sample of
benevolence. The same is true of love. The idea of beauty must naturally
take possession of an enormous space in a spiritual temperament such as I have
invented. Harmony, balance of line, fine cadence in movement, appear to the
dreamer as necessities, as duties, not only for all beings of creation, but
for himself, the dreamer, who finds himself at this period of the crisis
endowed with a marvellous aptitude for understanding the immortal and
universal rhythm. And if our fanatic lacks personal beauty, do not think he
suffers long from the avowal to which he is obliged, or that he regards
himself as a discordant note in the world of harmony and beauty improvised by
his imagination. The sophisms of hashish are numerous and admirable, tending
as a rule to optimism, and one of the {99} principal and the most efficacious
is that which transforms desire into realisation. It is the same, doubtless,
in many cases of ordinary life; but here with how much more ardour and
subtlety! Otherwise, how could a being so well endowed to understand harmony,
a sort of priest of the beautiful, how could he make an exception to, and a
blot upon, his own theory? Moral beauty and its power, gracefulness and its
seduction, eloquence and its achievements, all these ideas soon present
themselves to correct that thoughtless ugliness; then they come as consolers,
and at last as the most perfect courtiers, sycophants of an imaginary sceptre.
Concerning love, I have heard many persons feel a school-boy curiosity,
seeking to gather information from those to whom the use of hashish was
familiar, what might not be this intoxication of love, already so powerful in
its natural state, when it is enclosed in the other intoxication; a sun within
a sun. Such is the question which will occur to that class of minds which I
will call intellectual gapers. To reply to a shameful sub-meaning of this
part of the question which cannot be openly discussed, I will refer the reader
to Pliny, who speaks somewhere of the properties of hemp in such a way as to
dissipate any illusions on this subject. One knows, besides, that loss of
tone is the most ordinary result of the abuse which men make of their nerves,
and of the substances which excite them. Now, as we are not here considering
effective power, but motion or susceptibility, I will simply ask the reader to
consider that the imagination of a sensitive man intoxicated with hashish is
raised to a prodigious degree, as little easy to determine as would be the
utmost force possible to the wind in a hurricane, {100} and his senses are
subtilised to a point almost equally difficult to define. It is then
reasonable to believe that a light caress, the most innocent imaginable, a
handshake, for example, may possess a centuple value by the actual state of
the soul and of the senses, and may perhaps conduct them, and that very
rapidly, to that syncope which is considered by vulgar mortals as the "summum"
of happiness; but it is quite indubitable that hashish awakes in an
imagination accustomed to occupy itself with the affections tender
remembrances to which pain and unhappiness give even a new lustre. It is no
less certain that in these agitations of the mind there is a strong ingredient
of sensuality; and, moreover, it may usefully be remarked ___ and this will
suffice to establish upon this ground the immorality of hashish ___ that a
sect of Ishmaelites (it is from the Ishmaelites that the Assassins are sprung)
allowed its adoration to stray far beyond the Lingam-Yoni; that is to say, to
the absolute worship of the Lingam, exclusive of the feminine half of the
symbol. There would be nothing unnatural, every man being the symbolic
representation of history, in seeing an obscene heresy, a monstrous religion,
arise in a mind which has cowardly given itself up to the mercy of a hellish
drug and which smiles at the degradation of its own faculties.
Since we have seen manifest itself in hashish intoxication a strange
goodwill toward men, applied even to strangers, a species of philanthropy made
rather of pity than of love (it is here that the first germ of the Satanic
spirit which is to develop later in so extraordinary a manner shows itself),
but which goes so far as to fear giving pain to any one, one may guess what
may happen to the localised sentimentality applied to a {101} beloved person
who plays, or has played, an important part in the moral life of the reveller.
Worship, adoration, prayer, dreams of happiness, dart forth and spring up with
the ambitious energy and brilliance of a rocket. Like the powder and
colouring-matter of the firework, they dazzle and vanish in the darkness.
There is no sort of sentimental combination to which the subtle love of a
hashish-slave may not lend itself. The desire to protect, a sentiment of
ardent and devoted paternity, may mingle themselves with a guilty sensuality
which hashish will always know how to excuse and to absolve. It goes further
still. I suppose that, past errors having left bitter traces in the soul, a
husband or a lover will contemplate with sadness in his normal state a past
over-clouded with storm; these bitter fruits may, under hashish, change to
sweet fruits. The need of pardon makes the imagination more clever and more
supplicatory, and remorse itself, in this devilish drama, which only expresses
itself by a long monologue, may act as an incitement and powerfully rekindle
the heart's enthusiasm. Yes, remorse. Was I wrong in saying that hashish
appeared to a truly philosophical mind as a perfectly Satanic instrument?
Remorse, singular ingredient of pleasure, is soon drowned in the delicious
contemplation of remorse; in a kind of voluptuous analysis; and this analysis
is so rapid that man, this natural devil, to speak as do the followers of
Swedenborg, does not see how involuntary it is, and how, from moment to
moment, he approaches the perfection of Satan. He admires his remorse, and
glorifies himself, even while he is on the way to lose his freedom.
There, then, is my imaginary man, the mind that I have {102} chosen,
arrived at that degree of joy and peace where he is compelled to admire
himself. Every contradiction wipes itself out; all philosophical problems
become clear, or at least appear so; everything is material for pleasure; the
plentitude of life which he enjoys inspires him with an unmeasured pride; a
voice speaks in him (alas, it is his own!) which says to him: "Thou hast now
the right to consider thyself as superior to all men. None knoweth thee, none
can understand all that thou thinkest, all that thou feelest; they would,
indeed, be incapable of appreciating the passionate love which they inspire in
thee. Thou art a king unrecognised by the passers-by; a king who lives, yet
none knows that he is king but himself. But what matter to thee? Hast thou
not sovereign contempt, which makes the soul so kind?"
We may suppose, however, that from one time to another some biting memory
strikes through and corrupts this happiness. A suggestion due to the exterior
world may revive a past disagreeable to contemplate. How many foolish or vile
actions fill the past! ___ actions indeed unworthy of this king of thought,
and whose escutcheon they soil? Believe that the hashish-man will bravely
confront these reproachful phantoms, and even that he will know how to draw
from these hideous memories new elements of pleasure and of pride!
Such will be the evolution of his reasoning. The first sensation of pain
being over, he will curiously analyse this action or this sentiment whose
memory has troubled his existing glory; the motive which made him act thus;
the circumstances by which he was surrounded; and if he does not find in these
circumstances sufficient reasons, if not to absolve, at least to extenuate his
guilt, do not imagine that he admits {103} defeat. I am present at his
reasoning, as at the play of a mechanism seen under a transparent glass.
"This ridiculous, cowardly, or vile action, whose memory disturbed me for a
moment, is in complete contradiction with my true and real nature, and the
very energy with which I condemn it, the inquisitorial care with which I
analyse and judge it, prove my lofty and divine aptitude for virtue. How many
men could be found in the world of men clever enough to judge themselves;
stern enough to condemn themselves?" And not only does he condemn himself,
but he glorifies himself; the horrible memory thus absorbed in the
contemplation of ideal virtue, ideal charity, ideal genius, he abandons
himself frankly to his triumphant spiritual orgy. We have seen that,
counterfeiting sacrilegiously the sacrament of penitence, at one and the same
time penitent and confessor, he has given himself an easy absolution; or,
worse yet, that he has drawn from his contemplation new food for his pride.
Now, from the contemplation of his dreams and his schemes of virtue he
believes finally in his practical aptitude for virtue; the amorous energy with
which he impresses this phantom of virtue seems to him a sufficient and
peremptory proof that he possesses the virile energy necessary for the
fulfilment of his ideal. He confounds completely dream with action, and his
imagination, growing warmer and warmer in face of the enchanting spectacle of
his own nature corrected and idealised, substituting this fascinating image of
himself for his real personality, so poor in will, so rich in vanity, he ends
by declaring his apotheosis in these clear and simple terms, which contain for
him a whole world of abominable pleasures: "I am the most virtuous of all
men." Does not that remind you a little of {104} Jean-Jacques, who, he also
having confessed to the Universe, not without a certain pleasure, dared to
break out into the same cry of triumph (or at least the difference is small
enough) with the same sincerity and the same conviction? The enthusiasm with
which he admired virtue, the nervous emotion which filled his eyes with tears
at the sight of a fine action or at the thought of all the fine actions which
he would have wished to accomplish, were sufficient to give him a superlative
idea of his moral worth. Jean-Jacques had intoxicated himself without the aid
of hashish.
Shall I pursue yet further the analysis of this victorious monomania?
Shall I explain how, under the dominion of the poison, my man soon makes
himself centre of the Universe? how he becomes the living and extravagant
expression of the proverb which says that passion refers everything to itself?
He believes in his virtue and in his genius; can you not guess the end? All
the surrounding objects are so many suggestions which stir in him a world of
thought, all more coloured, more living, more subtle than ever, clothed in a
magic glamour. "These mighty cities," says he to himself, "where the superb
buildings tower one above the other; these beautiful ships balanced by the
waters of the roadstead in homesick idleness, that seem to translate our
thought 'When shall we set sail for happiness?; these museums full of lovely
shapes and intoxicating colours; these libraries where are accumulated the
works of science and the dreams of poetry; this concourse of instruments whose
music is one; these enchantress women, made yet more charming by the science
of adornment and coquetry: all these things have been created for me, for me,
for me! For me humanity has {105} toiled; has been martyred, crucified, to
serve for pasture, for pabulum to my implacable appetite for emotion,
knowledge, and beauty."
I leap to the end, I cut the story short. No one will be surprised that a
thought final and supreme jets from the brain of the dreamer: "I am become
God."
But a savage and burning cry darts from his breast with such an energy,
such a power of production, that if the will and the belief of a drunken man
possessed effective power this cry would overthrow the angels scattered in the
quarters of the heaven: "I am a god."
But soon this hurricane of pride transforms itself into a weather of calm,
silent, reposeful beatitude, and the universality of beings presents itself
tinted and illumined by a flaming dawn. If by chance a vague memory slips
into the soul of this deplorable thrice-happy one ___ "Might there not be
another God?" ___ believe that he will stand upright before Him; that he will
dispute His will, and confront Him without fear.
Who was the French philosopher that, mocking modern German doctrines, said:
"I am a god who has dined ill"? This irony would not bite into a spirit
uplifted by hashish; he would reply tranquilly: "Maybe I have dined ill; but I
am a god."
{106}
CHAPTER V
MORAL
BUT the morrow; the terrible morrow! All the organs relaxed, tired; the
nerves unstretched, the teasing tendency to tears, the impossibility of
applying yourself to a continuous task, teach you cruelly that you have been
playing a forbidden game. Hideous nature, stripped of its illumination of the
previous evening, resembles the melancholy ruins of a festival. The will, the
most precious of all faculties, is above all attacked. They say, and it is
nearly true, that this substance does not cause any physical ill; or at least
no grave one; but can one affirm that a man incapable of action and fit only
for dreaming is really in good health, even when every part of him functions
perfectly? Now we know human nature sufficiently well to be assured that a
man who can with a spoonful of sweetmeat procure for himself incidentally all
the treasures of heaven and of earth will never gain the thousandth part of
them by working for them. Can you imagine to yourself a State of which all
the citizens should be hashish drunkards? What citizens! What warriors!
What legislators! Even in the East, where its use is so widely spread, there
are Governments which have understood the necessity of proscribing it. In
fact it is forbidden to man, under penalty of intellectual decay and death, to
upset {107} the primary conditions of his existence, and to break up the
equilibrium of his faculties with the surroundings in which they are destined
to operate; in a word, to outrun his destiny, to substitute for it a fatality
of a new kind. Let us remember Melmoth, that admirable parable. His shocking
suffering lies in the disproportion between his marvellous faculties, acquired
unostentatiously by a Satanic pact, and the surroundings in which, as a
creature of God, he is condemned to live. And none of those whom he wishes to
seduce consents to buy from him on the same conditions his terrible privilege.
In fact every man who does not accept the conditions of life sells his soul.
It is easy to grasp the analogy which exists between the Satanic creations of
poets and those living beings who have devoted themselves to stimulants. Man
has wished to become God, and soon? ___ there he is, in virtue of an
inexorable moral law, fallen lower than his natural state! It is a soul which
sells itself bit by bit.
Balzac doubtless thought that there is for man no greater shame, no greater
suffering, than to abdicate his will. I saw him once in a drawing-room, where
they were talking of the prodigious effects of hashish. He listened and asked
questions with an amusing attention and vivacity. Those who knew him may
guess that it must have interested him, but the idea of "thinking despite"
"himself" shocked him severely. They offered him "dawamesk." He examined it,
sniffed at it, and returned it without touching it. The struggle between his
almost childish curiosity and his repugnance to submit himself showed
strikingly on his expressive face. The love of dignity won the day. Now it
is difficult to imagine to oneself the maker of the theory of will, this
spiritual twin of {108} Louis Lambert, consenting to lose a grain of this
precious substance. Despite the admirable services which ether and chloroform
have rendered to humanity, it seems to me that from the point of view of the
idealist philosophy the same moral stigma is branded on all modern inventions
which tend to diminish human free will and necessary pain. It was not without
a certain admiration that I once listened to the paradox of an officer who
told me of the cruel operation undergone by a French general at El-Aghouat,
and of which, despite chloroform, he died. This general was a very brave man,
and even something more: one of those souls to which one naturally applies the
term "chivalrous." It was not, he said to me, chloroform that he needed, but
the eyes of all the army and the music of its bands. That might have saved
him. The surgeon did not agree with the officer, but the chaplain would
doubtless have admired these sentiments.
It is certainly superfluous, after all thee considerations, to insist upon
the moral character of hashish. Let me compare it to suicide, to slow
suicide, to a weapon always bleeding, always sharp, and no reasonable person
will find anything to object to. Let me compare it to sorcery or to magic,
which wishes in working upon matter by means of arcana (of which nothing
proves the falsity more than the efficacy) to conquer a dominion forbidden to
man or permitted only to him who is deemed worthy of it, and no philosophical
mind will blame this comparison. If the Church condemns magic and sorcery it
is that they militate against the intentions of God; that they save time and
render morality superfluous, and that she ___ the Church ___ only considers as
legitimate and true the treasures gained by assiduous goodwill. The gambler
who {109} has found the means to win with certainty we all cheat; how shall we
describe the man who tries to buy with a little small change happiness and
genius? It is the infallibility itself of the means which constitutes its
immorality; as the supposed infallibility of magic brands it with Satanic
stigma. Shall I add that hashish, like all solitary pleasures, renders the
individual useless to his fellow creatures and society superfluous to the
individual, driving him to ceaseless admiration of himself and dragging him
day by day towards the luminous abyss in which he admires his Narcissus face?
But even if at the price of his dignity, his honesty, and his free will man
were able to draw from hashish great spiritual benefits; to make a kind of
thinking machine, a fertile instrument? That is a question which I have often
heard asked, and I reply to it: In the first place, as I have explained at
length, hashish reveals to the individual nothing but himself. It is true
that this individual is, so to say, cubed, and pushed to his limit, and as it
is equally certain that the memory of impressions survives the orgy, the hope
of these utilitarians appears at the first glance not altogether unreasonable.
But I will beg them to observe that the thoughts from which they expect to
draw so great an advantage are not in reality as beautiful as they appear
under their momentary transfiguration, clothed in magic tinsel. They pertain
to earth rather than to Heaven, and owe great portion of their beauty to the
nervous agitation, to the greediness, with which the mind throws itself upon
them. Consequently this hope is a vicious circle. Let us admit for the
moment that hashish gives, or at least increases, genius; they forget that it
is in the nature of hashish to diminish the will, and that {110} thus it gives
with one hand what it withdraws with the other; that is to say, imagination
without the faculty of profiting by it. Lastly, one must remember, while
supposing a man adroit enough and vigorous enough to avoid this dilemma, that
there is another danger, fatal and terrible, which is that of all habits. All
such soon transform themselves into necessities. He who has recourse to a
poison in order to think will soon be unable to think without the poison.
Imagine to yourself the frightful lot of a man whose paralysed imagination
will no longer function without the aid of hashish or of opium! In
philosophical states the human mind, to imitate the course of the stars, is
obliged to follow a curve which loops it back to its point of departure, when
the circle must ultimately close. At the beginning I spoke of this marvellous
state into which the spirit of man sometimes finds itself thrown as if by a
special favour. I have said that, ceaselessly aspiring to rekindle his hopes
and raise himself towards the infinite, he showed (in every country and in
every time) a frenzied appetite for every substance, even those which are
dangerous, which, by exalting his personality, are able to bring in an instant
before his eyes this bargain Paradise, object of all his desires; and at last
that this daring spirit, driving without knowing it his chariot through the
gates of Hell, by this very fact bore witness to his original greatness. But
man is not so God-forsaken, so barren of straightforward means of reaching
Heaven, that he need invoke pharmacy and witchcraft. He has no need to sell
his soul to buy intoxicating caresses and the friendship of the Hur Al'ain.
What is a Paradise which must be bought at the price of eternal salvation? I
imagine a man (shall I {111} say a Brahmin, a poet, or a Christian
philosopher?) seated upon the steep Olympus of spirituality; around him the
Muses of Raphael or of Mategna, to console him for his long fasts and his
assiduous prayers, weave the noblest dances, gaze on him with their softest
glances and their most dazzling smiles; the divine Apollo, master of all
knowledge (that of Francavilla, of Albert D<>rer, of Goltzius, or another ___
what does it matter? Is there not an Apollo for every man who deserves one?),
caresses with his bow his most sensitive strings; below him, at the foot of
the mountain, in the brambles and the mud, the human fracas; the Helot band
imitates the grimaces of enjoyment and utters howls which the sting of the
poison tears from its breast; and the poet, saddened, says to himself: "These
unfortunate ones, who have neither fasted nor prayed, who have refused
redemption by the means of toil, have asked of black magic the means to raise
themselves at a single blow to transcendental life. Their magic dupes them,
kindles for them a false happiness, a false light; while as for us poets and
philosophers, we have begotten again our soul upon ourselves by continuous
toil and contemplation; by the unwearied exercise of will and the unfaltering
nobility of aspiration we have created for ourselves a garden of Truth, which
is Beauty; of Beauty which is Truth. Confident in the word which says that
faith removeth mountains, we have accomplished the only miracle which God has
licensed us to perform."
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
("Translated by" ALEISTER CROWLEY)
{112}
REVIEW
A BOOK OF MYSTERY AND VISION. By A. E. WAITE. William Rider and
Son. 7s. 6"d".
"The Introduction." Mr. Waite speaks of a "kind of secret school, or united
but incorporate fraternity, which independently of all conventional means of
recognition and communication do no less communicate and recognise one another
without hesitation of hindrance in every part of the world. ... Of this school
the author may and does claim that he is the intimate representative and
mouthpiece," &c. &c.
Good.
"This mystic life at its highest is undeniably selfish."
Hullo, what's this?
"It is a striking fact that so little of any divine consequence has been
uttered by poets in the English Language."
Really?
"The inspiration of it (the sense of sacramentalism) at certain times
saturated the whole soul of Tennyson ... there is scarcely a trace or tincture
of this sense in Shelley."
Poor Shelley!
"In the eighteenth century there was none found to give it Voice."
Poor Blake! (William Blake, you know! Never heard of William Blake?)
"For this school it is quite impossible that Shakespeare, for example,
should possess any consequence."
Poor Shakespeare!
And then ---
"This book is offered by the writer to his brethren, "ut adeptis appareat me"
"illis parem et fratrem," as proof positive that he is numbered among them, that
he is initiated into their mysteries, and exacts recognition as such in all
houses, temples, and tarrying-places of the fraternity."
An adept trying to prove that he is one! An adept with thoughts of his own
rank and glory!! An adept exacting recognition!!!
What about the instant recognition all over the world of which you prated
above? Mr. Waite, you seem to me to be a spiritual Arthur Orton!
Mr. Waite, we have opened the Pastos which you say contains the body of
your Father Christian Rosencreutz ___ and it's only poor old Druce!
"The Book." This is the strange thing; the moment that Mr. Waite leaves
prose for poetry, there is no more of this bunkum, bombast, and balderdash; we
find a poet, and rather an illuminated poet. We have to appeal from Philip
sober to Philip drunk! "In vino veritas."
Good poetry enough all this: yet one cannot help feeling that it is
essentially {113} the work of a scholar and a gentleman. One is inclined to
think of him as Pentheus in a frock-coat.
A MYSTERY-PLAY.
DIONYSUS. I bring ye wine from above
From the vats of the storied sun ---
MR. WAITE. Butler, decant the claret carefully!
DIONYSUS. For every one of ye love ---
MR. WAITE. Ay, lawful marriage is a sacrament.
DIONYSUS. And life for everyone ---
MR. WAITE. And lawful marriage should result in life.
DIONYSUS. Ye shall dance on hill and level ---
MR. WAITE. But not the vulgar cancan or mattchiche.
DIONYSUS. Ye shall sing through hollow and height ---
MR. WAITE. See that ye sing with due sobriety!
DIONYSUS. In the festal mystical revel,
The rapturous Bacchanal rite!
MR. WAITE. If Isabel de S.......should approve!
DIONYSUS. The rocks and trees are yours ---
MR. WAITE. According to Laws of Property.
DIONYSUS. And the waters under the hill --
MR. WAITE. Provided that you pay your water rate.
DIONYSUS. By the might of that which endures ---
MR. WAITE. Me, surely, and my fame as an adept.
DIONYSUS. The holy heaven of will!
MR. WAITE. Will Shakespeare was not an initiate.
DIONYSUS. I kindle a flame like a torrent
To rush from star to star ---
MR. WAITE. Incendiarism! Arson! Captain Shaw!
DIONYSUS. Your hair as a comet's horrent, ---
MR. WAITE. Not for a fortune would I ruffle mine.
DIONYSUS. Ye shall see things as they are.
MR. WAITE. Play fair, god! do not give the show away!
["The Maenads tear him limb from limb, and "MADAME DE S ...... "tries to"
"brain "DIONYSUS" with a dummy writ."
This is a great limitation, yet Mr. Waite is a really excellent poet
withal. All the poems show fine and deep thought, with facility and felicity
of expression. "The Lost Word" is extraordinarily fine, both dramatically and
lyrically. It seems a pity that Mr. Waite has no use for William Shakespeare!
The fact is (whatever George Hume Barne may say) that Mr. Waite is (or has)
a genius, who wishes to communicate sacred mysteries of truth and beauty; but
he is too often baulked by the mental and moral equipment of Mr. Waite. Even
so, he only just misses. And I will bet George Hume Barne a "cr<63>me de menthe"
that if Mr. Waite (even now) will ride on a camel from Biskra to Timbuktu with
an Ouled Nail and the dancer M'saoud, he will produce absolutely first-rate
poetry within six months.
Enough. But buy the book. A. QUILLER, JR.
{114}
AN ORIGIN
IN fire of gold they set them out,
The garlanded of old, who comb
The Mount of Evil, strong and stout
To wrest from Venus' brow the comb.
" "The fiery wind, the web unspun,"
" "The nine stars and the circling sun."
Not theirs to wander lost and lone,
Adream by mountain lake, and sea;
Not theirs to bear a face of stone
Away from human mystery:
They pondered o'er the runes of time,
They slew the Serpent of the Slime.
The brutish brain, the nervous hands,
The conscious power of thew and mind;
The agony of burning sands,
The blithe salt breezes blowing blind ___
The birth-pangs of the Emperor Thought,
Of Earth and Pain the wonder-wrought.
They hurled them blindly on the breast
Of foaming hate, of wild desire: {115}
From Time they held the old bequest,
The passioned pangs, the flash of fire ___
Not through the gods they dreamed of ran
The stream that fired the veins of man.
They stanched the gaping wound with turf,
With water slaked the burning maw;
Rolling within the boiling surf,
They caught the brine in eye and jaw.
They roared and rushed with tangled mane
To rape and ruin in the rain.
The hours flew by all swift and red;
They gorged, they slept within the shade:
They yelled in fear with muffled head
When thunder made them sore afraid.
Loud laughed the gods to see the wild
Mad glory of their weanling child.
A flash of long-forgotten light ___
I found again the men of old,
The wondering children of the night,
The ravagers of hill and wold ___
Our sane, strong, savage satyr-sires.
In whom were born the artist-fires.
The scorching sun, the sleeping moon,
The yelling wind that clave the trees,
The monsters that they fled, the croon
Of squaws with babes upon their knees,
The wet woods' call, the insistent sea,
The blood-stained birth of mystery. {116}
The scream of passion, and the foam
Upon the willing women's lips;
Green, dripping forests, love's dark home ___
These were the god-enwroughten whips
That gave the eagle-cars of Art
First impulse in the cave-man's heart.
The artist-light is backward borne,
Master within my brain to-night;
Back in the long-forgotten morn
I see the dawn of Thee and light;
The men that made me stare and stare
Through the great wood-fire's lurid glare.
And through the haze of time and life
Anew the dim, dark visions loom;
The matted bloody hair; the knife
Of jagged stone; the reeking fume
Of purple blood; the gore and bones
Rotting beneath the straight-aimed stones.
The dream is past; the night returns,
Old mother of the primal Fear;
Within me, Master, throbs and burns
The old grey wonder. Yea, I hear ___
The heritage is mine; I take
The wand encircled by the snake.
Far in the night I wander; far
Back in the forest of the Past,
Led by my sole and single star,
Where I shall dwell in peace at last. {117}
But once again I see Thee stand
Guarding the old forgotten land. ___
A silent land dream and fear,
Where thought-waves break upon the shore,
And reach the high gods' listening ear,
And echo on for evermore
Through the dark ages, till they reach
Their long-sought goal, and burst in speech.
VICTOR B. NEUBURG.
{118}
THE SOUL-HUNTER
THE SOUL-HUNTER1
I BOUGHT his body for ten francs. Months before I had bought his soul, bought
it for the first glass of the poison ___ the first glass of the new series of
horrors since his discharge, cured ___ cured! ___ from the "retreat." Yes, I
tempted him, I, a doctor! Bound by the vows ___ faugh! I needed his body!
His soul? pah! but an incident in the bargain. For soul is but a word, a vain
word ___ a battlefield of the philosopher fools, the theologian fools, since
Anaximander and Gregory Nanzianus. A toy. But the consciousness? That is
what we mean by "soul," we others. That then must live somewhere. But is it,
as Descartes thought, atomic? or fluid, now here, now there? Or is it but a
word for the totality of bodily sense? As Weir Mitchell supposed. Well, we
should see. I would buy a brain and hunt this elusive consciousness. Just
so, luck follows skill; the brain of Jules Foreau was the very pick of the
world's brains. The most self-conscious man in Europe! Intellectual to an
incredible point, introspective beyond the Hindus, "and" with the fatal craving
which made him mine. Jules Foreau, you might have been a statesman; you
became a sot ___ but you shall make the name of doctor Arthur Lee famous for
ever, and put an end to the great {121} problem of the ages. Aha, my friend,
how mad of me to fill my diary with this cheap introspective stuff! I feel
somehow that the affair will end badly. I am writing my "defence." Certainly
that excuses the form. A jury can never understand plain facts ___ the cold
light of science chills them; they need eloquence, sentiment. ... Well, I must
pay a lawyer for that, if trouble should really arise How should it? I have
made all safe ___ trust me!
I gave him the drug yesterday. The atropine was a touch of almost
superhuman cleverness; the fixed, glassy stare deader than death itself. I
complied with the foolish formulae of the law; in three hours I had the body
in my laboratory. In the present absurd state of the law there is really
nobody trustworthy in a business of this sort. "Tant pis!" I must cook my own
food for a month or so. For no doubt there will be a good deal of noise. No
doubt a good deal of noise. I must risk that. I dare not touch anything but
the brain; it might vitiate the whole experiment. Bad enough this plaster of
Paris affair. You see a healthy man of thirteen stone odd in his prime will
dislike any deep interference with his brain ___ resent it. Chains are
useless; nothing keeps a man still. Bar anaesthesia. And anaesthesia is the
one thing barred. He must feel, he must talk, he must be as normal as
possible. So I have simply built his neck, shoulders, and arms into plaster.
He can yell and he can kick. If it does him any good he is welcome. So ___
to business.
10.30. A.M. He is decidedly under the new drug ___ eta "; yet he does not
move. He takes longer to come back to life than I supposed. {122}
10.40. Warmth to extremities. Inhalations of lambda . He cannot speak yet, I
think. The glare of eyes is not due to hate, but to the atropine.
10.45. He has noticed the plaster arrangement and the nature of the room. I
think he guesses. A gurgle. I light a cigarette and put it in his
mouth. He spits it out. He seems hardly to understand my good-humour.
10.47. The first word ___ "What is it, you devil?" I show him the knife, "et"
"cetera," and urge him to keep calm and self-collected .
10.50. A laugh, not too nervous. A good sigh. "By George, you amuse me!"
Then with a sort of wistful sigh, "I thought you just meant to poison
me in some new patent kind of way." Bad; he wants to die. Must cheer
him up.
1 Unpublished pages from the diary of Dr. Arthur Lee --- "the
Montrouge Vampire."
11.0. I have given my little scientific lecture. The patient unimpressed.
The absinthe has damaged his reasoning faculty. He cannot see the "a"
"priori" necessity of the experiment. Strange!
11.10. Lord, how funny! ___ he thinks I may be mad, and is trying all the old
dodges to "humour" me! I must sober him.
11.15. Sobered him. Showed him his own cranium ___ he had never missed it, of
course. Yet the fact seemed to surprise him. Important, though, for
my thesis. Here at least is one part of the body whose absence in
nowise diminishes the range of the sensorium ___ soul ___ what shall we
call it? "chi ." Some important glands, of course, rule a man's
whole life. Others again ___ what use is a lymphatic to the soul? To
"chi "? {123} Well, we must deal with the glands in detail, at the
fountain-head, in the brain.
11.20. My writing seems to irritate him. Daren't give drugs. He flushes and
pales too easily. Absence of skull? Now, a little cut and tie ___ and
we shall see.
N.B. ___ To keep this record very distinct from the pure surgery of the
business.
11.22. A concentrated, sustained yell. It has quite shaken me. I never heard
the like. "All out" too, as we used to say on the Cam; he's physically
exhausted ___ "e.g.", has stopped kicking. Legs limp as possible. Pure
funk; I never hurt him.
11.25. A most curious thing: I feel an intense dislike of the man coming over
me; and, with an almost insane fascination, the thought, "Suppose I
were to "kiss" him?" Followed by a shiver of physical loathing and
disgust. Such thoughts have no business here at all. To work.
12.0. I want a drink; there are most remarkable gaps in the consciousness ___
not implying unconsciousness. I am inclined to think that what we call
continuous pain is a rhythmic beat, frequency of beat less than one in
sixty. The shrieks are simply heartbreaking.
12.5. Silence, more terrible than the yells. Afraid I had an accident. He
smiles, reassures me. Speaks ___ "Look here, doctor, enough of this
fooling; I'm annoyed with you, really don't know why ___ and I yell
because I know it worries you. But listen to this: under the drug I
really died, though you thought I was simulating death. On the
contrary, it is now that {124} I am simulating life." There seemed to
me, and still seems, some essential absurdity in these words; yet I
could not refute him. I opened my mouth and closed it. The voice went
on: "It follows that your whole experiment is a childish failure." I
cut him short; this time I found words. "You forget your position," I
said hotly. "It is against all precedent for the vivisectee to abuse
his master. Ingrate!" So incensed was I that I strode angrily to the
operating-chair and paralysed the ganglia governing the muscles of
speech. Imagine my surprise when he proceeded, entirely incommoded:
"On the contrary, it is you who are dead, Arthur Lee." The voice came
from behind me, from far off. "Until you die you never know it, but
you have been dead all along." My nerve is clearly gone; this must be
a case of pure hallucination. I begin to remember that I am alone ___
alone in the big house with the ... patient. Suppose I were to fall
ill? ... Was this thought written in my face? He laughed harsh and
loud. Disgusting beast!
12.15. A pretty fool I am, tying the wrong nerve. No wonder he could go on
talking! A nasty slip in such an experiment as this. Must check the
whole thing through again. ...
1.0. O.K. now. Must get some lunch. Oddly enough, I am pretty sure he was
telling the truth. He feels no pain, and only yells to annoy me.
2.10. Excellent! I suppress all the senses but smell, and give him his
wife's handkerchief. He bubbles over with amorous drivel; I should
love to tell him what she {125} died of, and who. ... A curious trait,
that last remark. Why do I "dislike" the man? I used to get on A1 with
him. (N.B. to stitch eyelids with silk. Damn the glare.)
2.20. Theism! The convolution with the cause-idea lying too close to the
convolution with the fear-idea. And imagination at work on the nexus!
About 24 mu between Charles Bradlaugh and Cardinal Newman!
2.50. So for faith and doubt? Sceptical criticism of my whole experiment
boils up in me. What is "normality"? Even so, what possible relation
is there between things and the evidence of them recorded in the brain?
Evidence of something, maybe. A thermometer chart gives a curve; yet
the mercury has only moved up and down. What about the time dimension?
But it is not a dimension; it is only a word to explain multiplicity of
sensation. Words! words! words! This is the last straw. There is no
conceivable standard whereby we may measure anything whatever; and it
is useless to pretend there is.
3.3. In short, we are all mad. Yet all this is but the expression of the
doubt-stop in the human organ. Let me pull out his faith-stop!
4.45. Done; the devil's own job. He seems to be a Pantheist Antinomian with
leanings towards Ritualism. Not impressive. My observation-stop (= my
doubt-stop nearly) is full out. (Funny that we should fall into the
old faculty jargon.) Perhaps if one's own faith-stop were out there
would be a fight; if one's reception-of-new-ideas-stop, a conversion.
{126}
5.12. I only wish I had two of them to test the "tuning-up" theory of
collective Hallucination and the like. Out of the question; we must
wait for Socialism. But enough for the day is the research thereof.
I've matter for a life's work already.
7.50. An excellent scratch dinner ___ none too soon. Turtle soup, potted
char, Yorkshire pie, Stilton, burgundy. Better than nothing. To-
morrow the question of putrefactive changes in the limbs and their
relation to the brain.
3.1. Planted bacilli in left foot. Will leave him to sleep. No difficulty
there; the brute's as tired as I am. Too tired to curse. I recited
"Abide with Me" throughout to soothe him. Some lines distinctly
humorous under the circumstances. Will have a smoke in the study and
check through the surg. record. Too dazed to realise everything, but I
am assuredly an epoch. Whaur's your Robbie Pasteur noo?
12.20. So I've been on a false trail all day! The course of the
A.M. research has let right away from the "chi -hunt." The byways have
obscured the main road. Valuable though; very very valuable. In the
morning success. Bed!
12.30. Yells and struggles again when I went in to say good-night. As I had
carefully paralysed "all" sensory avenues (to ensure perfect rest), how
was he aware of my presence? The memory of the scented handkerchief,
too, very strong; talked a lot of his wife, thinking here with him.
Pah! what beasts some men must be! Disgusting fellow! I'm no prude
either! If ever I do a woman I'll stop the Filth-gutter. "Ce serait"
"trop." {127}
12.40 Maybe he did "not" know of my presence; merely remembered me. He has
cause. How much there is in one's mind of the merely personal idea of
scoring off the bowlers. And every man is a batsman in a world of
bowlers. Like that leg-cricket game, what did we call it? Oh! bed,
bed!
5.0. Patient seriously ill; plaster irks breathing; all sorts of troubles
expected and unexpected. Putrefaction of left foot well advanced:
promises well for the day's work if I can check collapse.
5.31. Patient very much better; paralysed motor ganglia; safe to remove
plaster. Too much time wasted on these foolish mechanical details of
life when one is looking for the Master of the Machine.
6.12. Patient in excellent fettle; now to find "chi " ___ the soul!
11.55. Worn out; no "chi " yet. Patient well, normal; have checked shrieks,
ingenious dodge.
2.15. No time for food; brandy. Patient fighting fit. No "chi ."
3.1. "Dead!!!" No cause in the world ___ I must have cut right into the
"chi ," the soul.
The meningeal ---
[Dr. Lee's diary breaks off abruptly at this point. His researches were
never published. It will be remembered that he was convicted of causing the
death of his mistress, Jeannette Pheyron, under mysterious circumstances, some
six months after the date of the above. The surgical record referred to has
not been found. ___ EDITOR.]
{128}
MADELEINE
OH, the cool white neck of her:
The ivory column: oh, the velvet skin.
Little I reck of her
Save the curve from breast to chin.
Oh, the rising rounded throat,
Pain's subtle antidote.
To sit and watch the pulses of it beat,
And guess the passionate heat
Of the blood that flows within!
I see it swelling with her even breath
And long to make it throb
With a love as strong as death,
To cause the sharp and sudden-catching sob
And the swift dark flood,
Showing the instant blood,
Quick mantling up where I had made it throb
With love as strong as death.
Oh, the pure, pale face of her;
The chiselled outline, chaste as starlit snows.
The ineffable grace of her;
The distant, perfect grace of her repose.
Her mouth the waiting redness of a rose; 129}
A rose too nearly cloyed
With its own secret sweetness unalloyed:
That waits in scented silence, stately-sad,
Wed to a guarded passion thro' long days,
But lifts the proud head, saying "I am glad,"
Haughty receives as due the word of praise,
And flings her perfumed wonders on the air:
"Afar," she says, "fall down and gaze; for I am fair."
Oh the dark, sweet hair of her,
Burnished cascade of heavy-tress<73>d black:
Nothing's more rare of her
Than its thick massed glory over breast and back.
It rolls and ripples, silver flecked,
Like moonlight on a misty sea,
Whose lifting surfaces reflect
A sombre, ever-changing radiancy.
I would compare
The dusk, soft-stealing perfume of her hair
To breezes on a Southern Summer eve,
When the night-scented stock hangs drowsing on the air.
Its languid incense bids me half believe
I pass the dreamy day in reveries,
By some sleep-haunted shore of the Hesperides.
Oh, the deep, dark eyes of her,
Half slumbrous depths of heavy lidded calm:
There's naught I prize of her
More than the shrouded silence they embalm.
There's all the mystery of an enchanted pool,
Hid in brown woodlands cool; {130}
Profound, untroubled, where the lilies grow
And the pale lotus sheds her stealing charm:
Dappled where silent shadows come and go,
And all the air is warm
With the low melody of the Sacred Bird
Sobbing his soul out to the waiting wood,
And over all a hush<73>d voice is heard:
This place is consecrate to Love in solitude.
ARTHUR F. GRIMBLE
{131}
THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON
THE KING
A.'. A.'. Publication in Class B.
Issued by Order:
D.D.S. 7<> = 4<> Praemonstrator
O.S.V. 6<> = 5<> Imperator
N.S.F. 5<> = 6<> Cancellarius
Book II. continued
THE SORCERER
BEFORE we can discuss the Operation of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin,
commenced by P. in the autumn of 1899, it is first necessary that we should
briefly explain the meaning and value of Ceremonial Magic; and secondly, by
somewhat retracing our footsteps, disclose to the reader the various methods
and workings P. had undertaken before he set out to accomplish this supreme
one.
For over a year now he had been living "perdu" in the heart of London,
strenuously applying himself to the various branches of secret knowledge that
his initiations in the Order of the Golden Dawn had disclosed to him. Up to
the present we have only dealt with these initiations, and his methods of
Travelling in the Spirit Vision, and Rising on the Planes; but still there
remain to be shown the Ceremonial methods he adopted; however, before we enter
upon these, we must return to our first point, namely ___ the meaning and
value of Ceremonial Magic.
Ceremonial Magic, as a means to attainment, has in common with all other
methods, Western or Eastern, one supreme object in view ___ identification
with the Godhead; and it matters not if the Aspirant be Theist or Atheist,
Pantheist or Autotheist, Christian or Jew, or whether he name the goal of his
attainment God, Zeus, Christ, Matter, Nature, Spirit, Heaven, {135} Reason,
Nirvana, Asgard, No-Thing or No-God, so long as he "has" a goal in view, and a
goal he is striving to attain. Without a goal, he is but a human ship without
port or destination; and, without striving, work, WILL to attain, he is but a
human derelict, rudderless and mastless, tossed hither and thither by the
billows of lunacy, eventually to sink beneath the black waters of madness and
death.
Thus we find that outside the asylum, we, one and all of us, are strenuously
or slothfully, willingly or unwillingly, consciously or unconsciously,
progressing slowly or speedily towards "some" goal that we have set up as an
ideal before us. Follow the road to that goal, subdue all difficulties, and,
when the last has been vanquished, we shall find that that "some goal" is in
truth THE GOAL, and that the road upon which we set out was but a little
capillary leading by vein and artery to the very Heart of Unity itself.
Then all roads lead to the same goal? ___ Certainly. Then, say you, "All
roads are equally good?" Our answer is, "Certainly not!" For it does not
follow that because all roads lead to Rome, all are of the same length, the
same perfection, or equally safe. The traveller who would walk to Rome must
use his own legs ___ his WILL to arrive there; but should he discard as
useless the advice of such as know the way and have been there, and the maps
of the countries he has to journey through, he is but a fool, only to be
exceeded in his folly by such as try all roads in turn and arrive by none. As
with the traveller, so also with the Aspirant; he must commence his journey
with the cry, "I "will" attain! and leave nothing undone that may help him to
accomplish this attainment. By contemplating the Great Work, and all means to
{136} its attainment, little by little from the Knowledge he has obtained will
he learn to extract that subtle Understanding which will enable him to
construct such symbols of strength, such appliances of power, such exercises
of Will and Imagination, that by their balanced, chaste and sober use, he MUST
succeed if he WILL to do so.
So we see, it matters very little whether the Aspirant, truly the Seer, cry
"Yea" or "Nay," so long as he do so with a "will," a "will" that will beget a
Sorcery within the cry; for as Levi says: "The intelligence which denies,
invariably affirms something, since it is asserting its liberty."
Let us now inquire what this liberty is, but above all, whatever we write:
"Be not satisfied with what we tell you; and act for yourself." And, if you
act with daring and courage, you will indeed outstep the normal powers of life
and become a strong man amongst strong men, so that "if we say unto this
mountain, be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done."
For the land into which you enter is a land which, to the common eye, appears
as a fabulous land of wonder and miracle. Yet we say to you that there is no
wonder imagined in the mind of man that man is not capable of performing,
there is no miracle of the Imagination, which has been performed by man, the
which may not yet again be performed by him. The sun has stood still upon
Gibeon and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, and the stars of heaven have
fallen unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she
is shaken by a mighty wind. What are suns, and moons, and stars, but the
ideas of dreaming children cradled in the abyss of a drowsy understanding? To
the blind worm, the sun is as the fluttering of warm wings in the outer {137}
darkness, and the stars are not; to the savage, as welcome ball of fire, and
the glittering eyes of the beasts of night: to us, as spheres of earth's
familiar elements and many hundred million miles away. And to the man of ten
thousand years hence ___ who knows! And to him a hundred million years after
that ___ who cares! Senses may come and go, and the five may become ten, and
the ten twenty, so that the beings of that last far-off twilight may differ
from us, as we differ from the earthworm, and the weeds in the depths of the
sea. But enough ___ Become the Changless One, and ye shall leap past a
million years, and an hundred hundred million in the twinkling of an eye.
Nay! for Time will burst as a bubble between your lips; and, seeing and
understanding, Space will melt as a bead of sweat upon your brow and vanish!
Dare to will and will to know, and you will become as great as, and even
greater than, Apollonius, Flamel or Lully; and then know to keep silence, lest
like Lucifer you fall, and the brilliance of your knowledge blind the eyes of
the owls that are men; and from a great light, spring a great darkness; and
the image survive and the imagination vanish, and idols replace the gods, and
churches of brick and stone the mysteries of the forests and the mountains,
and the rapture which girds the hearts of men like a circle of pure emerald
light.
The great seeming miracles of life pass by unheeded. Birth and Generation
are but the sorry jests of fools; yet not the wisest knows how a blade of
grass sprouts from the black earth, or how it is that the black earth is
changed into the green leaves and all the wonders of the woods. Yet the
multitude trample the flowers of the fields under their feet, and snigger in
their halls of pleasure at a dancer clothed in {138} frilled nudity, because
they are nearer seeing the mysteries of Creation than they are in the smugness
of their own stuffy back parlours; and gape in wonder at some stage trickster,
some thought-reading buffoon, and talk about the supernatural, the
supernormal, the superterestrial, the superhuman, and all the other
superficial superfluities of superannuated supernumeraries, as if this poor
juggler were some kind of magician who could enter their thick skulls and
steal their sorry thoughts, whilst all the time he is at the old game of
picking their greasy pockets.
Miracles are but the clouds that cloak the dreamy eyes of ignorant men.
Therefore let us once and for all thunder forth: There are no miracles for
those who wake; miracles are for the dreamers, and wonders are as bottled
bull's-eyes in a bun-shop for penniless children. Beauty alone exists for the
Adept. Everywhere there is loveliness ___ in the poppy and in the dunghill
upon which it blows; in the palace of marble and in the huts of sunbaked mud
which squat without its walls. For him the glades of the forests laugh with
joy, and so do the gutters of our slums. All is beautiful, and flame-shod he
speeds over earth and water, through fire and air; and builds, in the tangled
web of the winds, that City wherein no one dreams, and where even awakenment
ceases to be.
But in order to work miracles we must be outside the ordinary conditions of
humanity; we must either be abstracted by wisdom or exalted by madness, either
superior to all passions or beyond them through ecstasy or frenzy. Such is
the first and most indispensable preparation of the operator. Hence, by a
providential or fatal law, the magician can only exercise omnipotence in
inverse proportion to his material interest; the alchemist makes so much the
more gold as he is the more resigned to privations, and the more esteems that
poverty which protects the secrets of the "magnum" {139} "opus." Only the adept
whose heart is passionless will dispose of the love and hate of those whom he
would make instruments of his science; the myth of Genesis is eternally true,
and God permits the tree of science to be approached only by those men who are
sufficiently strong and self-denying not to covet its fruits. Ye, therefore,
who seek in science a means to satisfy your passions, pause in this fatal way;
you will find nothing but madness or death. This is the meaning of the vulgar
tradition that the devil ends sooner or later by strangling sorcerers. The
magus must hence be impassible, sober and chaste, disinterested, impenetrable,
and inaccessible to any kind of prejudice or terror. He must be without
bodily defects, and proof against all contractions and all difficulties. The
first and most important of magical operations is the attainment of this rare
pre-eminence.1
The "via mystica" leading to this pre-eminence may aptly be compared to a
circle. Wherever the Aspirant strikes it, there he will find a path leading
to the right and another leading to the left. To the right the goal is all
things, to the left the goal is nothing. Yet the paths are not two paths, but
one path; and the goals are not two goals, but one goal. The Aspirant upon
entering the circle must travel by the one or the other, and must not look
back; lest he be turned into a pillar of salt, and become the habitation of
the spirits of Earth. "For thy vessel the Beasts of the Earth shall inhabit,"
as sayeth Zoroaster. The Magus travels by both simultaneously, if he travels
at all; for he has learnt what is meant by the mystery: "A straight line is
the circumference of a circle whose radius in infinity"; a line of infinite
length in the mind of the Neophyte, but which in truth is also a line of
infinite shortness in that of the Magus, if finite or infinite at all.
The circle having been opened out, from the line can any curve be
fashioned; and if the Magus "wills it," the line "will be" a triangle, or a
square, or a circle; and at his word it will {140} flash before him as a
pentagram or a hexagram, or perchance as an eleven-pointed star.
Thus shall the Aspirant learn to create suns and moon, and all the hosts of
heaven out of unity. But first he must travel the circumference of the
circle; and, when mystically he has discovered that the goal is the starting-
point, and where he entered that circle there also will it break and open out,
so that the adytum of its centre becomes as an arch in its outer wall, then
indeed will he be worthy of the name of Magus.
The keystone to this arch some have called God, some Brahma, some Zeus,
some Allah, some even IAO the God of the sounding name; but in truth, O
seeker, it is Thy-SELF ___ this higher dimension in which the inner becomes
the outer, and in which the single Eye alone can see the throbbing heart,
Master of the entangled skein of veins.
Let us for example's sake call this attainment by the common name of God
(SELF as opposed to self). And as we have seen the path of union with god or
goal is twofold:
I. The attainment of all things.
II. The destruction of all things.
And whichever way we travel to right or to left the method is also twofold,
or the twofold in one:
I. Exaltation by madness.
II. Exaltation by wisdom.
In the first we awake from the dream of illusion by a blinding light being
flashed across our eyes; in the second, gradually, by the breaking of the
dawn.
1 E. Levi, "Doctrine and Ritual of Magic," p. 192.
In the first the light of knowledge, though but comparable to the whole of
Knowledge as a candle-flame to the sun, may {141} be so sudden that blindness
follows the first illumination.2 In the second, though the light be as the
sun of knowledge itself; first its gentle warmth, and then its tender rays
awake us, and lead us through the morning to the noontide of day. Like
children of joy we rise from our beds and dance through the dewy fields, and
chase the awakening butterflies from the blushing flowers ___ ecstasy is ours.
The first is as a sudden bounding beyond darkness into light, from the humdrum
into the ecstatic; the second a steady march beyond the passionate West into
the land of everlasting Dawn.
Concerning the first we have little to say; for it is generally the
illumination of the weak. The feeble often gain the little success they do
gain in life, not through their attempts to struggle, but on account of their
weakness ___ the enemy not considering they are worth power and shot. But the
strong gain their lives in fight and victory; the sword is their warrant to
live, and by their swords "will" they attain; and when they once have attained,
by their swords will they rule, and from warriors become as helm<6C>d kings whose
crowns are of iron, and whose sceptres are sharp swords of glittering steel,
and reign; whilst the weak still remain as slaves, and a prey to the wild
dreams of the night. Of a truth, sometimes the weak charioteer wins the race;
but on account of his weakness he is often carried past the winning-post by
the steeds that have given him the victory, and, unable to hold them back, he
is dashed against the walls of the arena, whilst the strong man passing the
judges turns his chariot round and receives the crown of victory, or if not
that, is ever ready to race again. {142}
To learn how to WILL is the key to the kingdom, the door of which as we
have seen contains two locks, or rather two bolts in one lock, one turning to
the right and the other to the left. Either pile up the imagination with
image upon image until the very kingdom of God is taken by assault; or
withdrawn one symbol after another until the walls are undermined and the
"cloud-capped towers" come tumbling to the ground. In either case the end is
the same ___ the city is taken. Or perchance if you are a great Captain, and
your army is filled with warlike men, and you are in possession of all the
engines suitable to this Promethean struggle ___ at one and the same time
scale the bastions and undermine the ramparts, so that as those above leap
down, those beneath leap up, and the city falls as an arrow from a bow that
breaks in twain in the hand. Such warfare is only for the great ___ the
greatest; yet we shall see that this is the warfare that P. eventually waged.
And where the strong have trod the weak may "dare" to follow.
This path must necessarily be a difficult one; illusions and delusions must
be expected, temptations and defeats encountered with equanimity, and fears
and terrors passed by without trembling. The labours of Hercules are a good
example of the labours the Aspirant, who would be an Adept, must expect.
However, there is not space here, nor is this the place, to enter into the
twelve mystic works of this man who became a God. Yet let us at least note
three points ___ that the tenth labour was to slay Geryon, the "three-"headed
and "three-"bodied monster of Gades; that the eleventh was to obtain apples from
the garden of the Hesperides, where lived the "three" daughters of Hesperus; and
that the last was to bring upon earth the "three-"headed dog Cerberus, and so
{143} unguard the gates of Hades. Similar is the Adept's last labour, to
destroy the terrors of hell and to bring upon earth the Supernal triad and
formulate the HB:Shin 3 in HB:Heh HB:Vau HB:Shin HB:Heh HB:Yod .
One idea must possess us, and all our energies must be focused upon it. A
man who would be rich must worship wealth and understand poverty; a man who
would be strong must worship strength and understand weakness; and so also a
man who would be God must worship deity and understand devilry: that is, he
2 The greater our ignorance the more intense appears the
illumination.
3 N.B. --- the Shin is composed of three Yodhs, and its value is
300.
must become saturated with the reflections of Kether in Malkuth, until the
earth be leavened and the two eyes become one. He must indeed build up his
tower stone upon stone until the summit vanish amongst the stars, and he is
lost in a land which lies beyond the flames of day and the shadows of night.
To attain to this Ecstasy, exercises and operations of the most trivial
nature must be observed, if they, even in the remotest manner, appertain to
the "one" idea.
You are a beggar, and you desire to make gold; set to work and never leave
off. I promise you, in the name of science, all the treasures of Flamel and
Raymond Lully. "What is the first thing to do?" Believe in your power, then
act. "But how act?" Rise daily at the same hour, and that early; bathe at a
spring before daybreak, and in all seasons; never wear dirty clothes, but
rather wash them yourself if needful; accustom yourself to voluntary
privations, that you may be better able to bear those which come without
seeking; then silence every desire which is foreign to the fulfilment of the
Great Work.
What! By bathing daily in a spring, I shall make gold?" You will work in
order to make it. "It is a mockery!" No, it is an arcanum. "How can I make
use of an arcanum which I fail to understand?" Believe and act; you will
understand later.4
Levi here places belief as a crown upon the brow of work. {144} He is, in
a way, right; yet to the ordinary individual this belief is as a heavy load
which he cannot even lift, let alone carry, act how he will. Undoubtedly, if
a boy worried long enough over a text-book on trigonometry he would eventually
appreciate the theory and practice of logarithms; but why should he waste his
time? why not instead seek a master? Certainly, when he has learnt all the
text-books can teach and all the master can tell him, he must strike out for
himself, but up to this point he must place his faith in some one. To the
ordinary Aspirant a "Guru"5 is necessary; and the only danger to the uninitiate
is that he may place his trust in a charlatan instead of in an adept. This
indeed is a danger, but surely after a little while the most ignorant will be
able to discriminate, as a blind man can between day and night. And, if the
pupil be a true Seeker, it matters little in the end. For as the sacrament is
efficacious, though administered by an unworthy priest, so will his love of
Truth enable him to turn even the evil counsels of a knave to his advantage.
To return, how can these multiform desires be silenced, and the one desire
be realised so that it engulf the rest? To this question we must answer as we
have answered elsewhere ___ "only by a one-pointedness of the senses" ___ until
the five-sided polygon become pyramidal and vanish in a point. The base must
be well established, regular, and of even surface; for as the base so the
summit. In other words, the five senses must be strong and healthy and
without disease. An unhealthy man is unfitted to perform a magical operation,
and an hysterical man will probably end in the Qliphoth or Bedlam. A blind
man will not be able to equilibrate the sense of sight, {145} or a deaf man
the sense of hearing, like a man who can both see and hear; however, the
complete loss of one sense, if this is ever actually the case, if far better
than a mental weakness in that sense.
All senses and faculties must share in the work, such at least is the
dictum of Western Ceremonial Magic. And so we find the magician placing stone
upon stone in the construction of his Temple. That is to say, placing
pantacle upon pantacle, and safeguarding his one idea by means of swords,
daggers, wands, rings, perfumes, suffumigations, robes, talismans, crowns,
magic squares and astrological charts, and a thousand other symbols of things,
ideas, and states, all reflecting the one idea; so that he may build up a
mighty mound, and from it eventually leap over the great wall which stands
before him as a partition between two worlds.
4 "Doctrine and Ritual of Magic," pp. 194, 195.
5 Instructor.
All faculties and all senses should share in the work; nothing in the
priest of Hermes has the right to remain idle; intelligence must be formulated
by signs and summed by characters or pantacles; will must be determined by
words, and must fulfil words by deeds; the magical idea must be rendered into
light for the eyes, harmony for the ears, perfumes for the sense of smell,
savours for the palate, objects for the touch; the operator, in a word, must
realise in his whole life what he wishes to realise in the world without him;
he must become a "magnet" to attract the desired thing; and when he shall be
sufficiently magnetic, he must be convinced that the thing will come of
itself, and without thinking of it.6
This seems clear enough, but more clearly still is this all-important point
explained by Mr. Aleister Crowley in his preface to his edition of "The Book
of the Goetia of Solomon the King":
I am not concerned [writes Mr. Crowley} to deny the objective reality of
all "magical" phenomena; if they are illusions, they are at least as real as
many unquestioned {146} facts of daily life; and, if we follow Herbert
Spencer, they are at least evidence of some cause.
Now, this fact is our base. What is the cause of my illusion of seeing a
spirit in the triangle of Art?
Every smatterer, every expert in psychology, will answer, "that cause lies
in your brain."
* * * * * *
This being true for the ordinary Universe, that all sense-impressions are
dependent on changes in the brain, we must include illusions, which are after
all sense-impressions as much as "realities" are, in the class of "phenomena
dependent on brain-changes."
Magical phenomena, however, come under a special sub-class, since they are
willed, and their cause is the series of "real" phenomena called the
operations of Ceremonial Magic.
These consist of:
(1) "Sight."
The circle, square, triangle, vessels, lamps, robes, implements,
&c.
(2) "Sound."
The Invocations.
(3) "Smell."
The Perfumes.
(4) "Taste."
The Sacraments.
(5) "Touch."
As under (1). The circle, &c.
(6) "Mind."
The combination of all these and reflection on their significance.
These unusual impressions (1-5) produce unusual brain-changes; hence their
summary (6) is of unusual kind. The projection back into the phenomenal world
is therefore unusual.
Herein then consists the reality of the operations and effects of
ceremonial magic; and I conceive that the apology is ample, so far as the
"effects" refer only to those phenomena which appear to the magician himself,
the appearance of the spirit, his conversation, possible shocks from
imprudence, and so on, even to ecstasy on the one hand, and death or madness
on the other.7
6 "Doctrine and Ritual of Magic," p. 196.
7 "Goetia," pp. 1-3.
Thus we see that the Aspirant must become a "magnet," and attract all desires
to himself until there is nothing outside of {147} him left to attract; or
repel all things, until there is nothing left to repel.
In the East the five senses are treated in their unity, and the magical
operation becomes purely a mental one, and in many respects a more rational
and less emotional one. The will, so to speak, is concentrated on itself by
the aid of a reflective point ___ the tip of the nose, the umbilicus, a lotus,
or again, in a more abstract manner, on the inhalation and exhalation of the
breath, upon an idea or a sensation. The Yogi abandons the constructive
method, and so it is that we do not find him building up, but, instead,
undermining his consciousness, his instrument being a purely introspective
one, the power of turning his will as a mental eye upon himself, and finally
seeing himself as HimSELF.
However, in both the Western and Eastern systems, equilibrium is both the
method and the result. The Western Magician wills to turn darkness into
light, earth into gold, vice into virtue. He sets out to purify; therefore
all around him must be pure, ever to hold before his memory the one essential
idea. More crudely this is the whole principle of advertising. A good
advertiser so places his advertisement that wherever you go, and whichever way
you turn, you see the name of the article he is booming. If it happens, "e.g.",
to be "Keating's Insect Powder," the very name becomes part of you, so that
directly a flea is seen or mentioned "Keating's" spontaneously flashes across
your thoughts.
The will of a magician may be compared to a lamp burning in a dark and
dirty room. First he sets to work to clean the room out, then he places a
brightly polished mirror along one wall to reflect one sense, and then anther
to reflect {148} another, and so on, until, whichever way he look, up or down,
to right or left, behind or before, there he sees his will shining; and
ultimately so dazzling become the innumerable reflections, that he can see but
one great flame which obscures everything else. The Yogi on the other hand
dispenses with the mirrors, and contents himself in turning the wick lower and
lower until the room is one perfect darkness and nothing else can be seen or
even recognised beyond SELF.
By those who have passed along both these mystic paths, it will be found
that the energy expended is the same in both. Concentration is a terrific
labour; the mere fact of sitting still and mediating on one idea and slaying
all other ideas one after the other, and then constantly seeing them sprout up
hundred-headed like the Hydra, needs so great a power of endurance that,
though many undertake the task, few reach the goal. Again, the strain brought
to bear on a Ceremonial Magician is equally colossal, and often costly; and in
these bustling days the necessary seclusion is most difficult to obtain. And
so it came about that a combination of both the above systems was ultimately
adopted by P. However, it must be remembered that the dabbler in Ceremonial
Magic or Yoga is but heaping up evil against himself, just as the dabbler on
the Stock Exchange is. Magic, like gambling, has its chances; but in the
former as in the latter, without "will to work" chances are always against him
who puts his trust in them alone.
There is, however, one practice none must neglect, except the weakest, who
are unworthy to attempt it ___ the practice of Sceptical selection.
Eliphas Levi gives us the following case: {149}
One day a person said to me: "I would that I could be a fervent Catholic,
but I am a Voltairean. What would I not give to have faith!" I replied: "Say
'I would' no longer; say 'I will,' and I promise you that you will believe.
You tell me you are a Voltairean, and of all the various presentations of
faith that of the Jesuits is most repugnant to you, but at the same time seems
the most powerful and desirable. Perform the exercises of St. Ignatius again
and again, without allowing yourself to be discouraged, and you will gain the
faith of a jesuit. The result is infallible, and should you then have the
simplicity to ascribe it to a miracle, you deceive yourself now in thinking
that you are a Voltairean."8
Now all this may be good enough for Mrs. Eddy. To borrow a sword from one
of Voltaire's antagonists, and to thrust it through his back when he is not
looking, is certainly one way of getting rid of Voltaire. But the
intellectual knight must not behave like a Christian footpad; he must trap
Voltaire in his own arguments by absorbing the whole of Voltaire ___ eighty
volumes and more ___ until there is no Voltaire left, and as he does so, apply
to each link of Voltaire's armour the fangs of the Pyrrhonic Serpent; and
where that serpent bites through the links, those links must be discarded; and
where its teeth are turned aside, those links must be kept. Similarly must he
apply the serpent to St. Ignatius, and out of the combination of the strongest
links of both their armours fashion for himself so invulnerable a coat of mail
that none can pierce it. Thus, instead of burying one's reason in the sands
of faith, like an ostrich, one should rise like a phoenix of enlightenment out
of the ashes of both Freethought and Dogma. This is the whole of Philosophic
Scientific Illuminism.
Now that we have finished our short disquisition upon the Methods of
Western Magic, let us once again {150} turn to Frater P. and seen how he
applied them to his own labours.
Shortly after becoming a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn, P., as
already mentioned, became acquainted with a certain Frater, I.A. by name, a
magician of remarkable powers. At once a great friendship sprang up between
these two, and for over a year and a half they worked secretly in London at
various magical and scientific experiments.
During this period P. learnt what may be termed the alphabet of Ceremonial
Magic ___ namely, the workings of Practical Evocations, the Consecrations and
uses of Talismans, Invisibility, Transformations, Spiritual Development,
Divination, and Alchemical processes, the details of which are dealt with in a
manuscript entitled "Z.2." Of the Order of the Golden Dawn, which is divided
into five books, each under one of the letters of the name
HB:Heh HB:Vau HB:Shin HB:Heh HB:Yod .
These five books show how the 0<> = 0<> Ritual may be used as a magical
formula. They are as follow:
HB:Yod
BOOK I
PRACTICAL EVOCATION
A. The Magical Circle.
B. The Magician, wearing the great lamen of the Hierophant, and his scarlet
robe. The Hierophant's lamen is on the back of a pentacle, whereon is
engraved the sigil of the spirit to be invoked.
C. The Names and Formulae to be employed.
D. The symbol of the whole evocation.
E. The construction of the circle and the placing of all the symbols, &c.,
employed in the places proper allotted to them, so as to represent the
interior of the G.'. D.'. Temple in the "Enterer": and the purification and
consecration of the actual pieces of ground or place selected for the
performance of the invocation. {151}
F. The invocation of the Higher Powers. Pentacle formed by the concentric
bands, name and sigil therein, in proper colours; is to be bound thrice with a
cord, and shrouded in black, thus bringing into action a blind force, to be
further directed or differentiated in the process of the ceremony.
"Announcement" aloud of the "object" of the working, naming the Spirit or Spirits
8 "Doctrine and Ritual of Magic," p. 195
which it is desired to evoke. This is pronounced standing in the centre of
the circle, and turning towards the quarter from which the Spirit will come.
G. The name and sigil of the spirit wrapped in a black cloth or covering is
now placed within the circle, at the point corresponding to the West,
representing the candidate. The Consecration, or Baptism by water and fire of
the sigil then takes place: and the proclamation in a loud and firm voice of
the spirit (or spirits) to be evoked.
H. The veiled sigil is now to be placed at the foot of the altar. The
Magician then calls aloud the name of the spirit, summoning him to appear:
stating for what purpose the spirit is evoked: what is desired in the
operation: why the evocation is performed at this time: and finally solemnly
affirming that the Spirit SHALL be evoked by the ceremony.
I. Announcement aloud that all is prepared for the commencement of the
actual evocation. If it be a "good" Spirit the sigil is now to be placed "within"
"the white triangle." The Magician places his left hand upon it, raises in his
right hand the magical implement employed (usually the sword of Art) erect,
and commences the evocation of the Spirit. This being an exorcism of the
Spirit unto visible appearance. The Magician stands in the place of the
Hierophant during the obligation, and faces West irrespective of the
particular quarter of the Spirit.
But if the Nature of the Spirit be evil, then the sigil must be placed
"without" and to the West of the white triangle; and the Magician shall be
careful to keep the point of the magic Sword upon the centre of the sigil.
J. Now let the Magician imagine himself as "clothed outwardly" with the
semblance of the form of the Spirit to be evoked: and in this let him be
careful "not to identify himself" with the Spirit, which would be dangerous, but
only to formulate a species of Mask, worn for the time being. And if he know
not the symbolic form of the Spirit, then let him assume the form of an angel
belonging unto the same class of operation. This form being assumed, then let
him pronounce aloud, with a firm and solemn voice, "a convenient and potent"
"oration and Exorcism of the Spirit unto visible appearance." At the conclusion
of this exorcism, taking the covered sigil in his left hand, let him smite it
thrice with the "flat" blade of the Magic Sword. Then let him raise on high his
arms to their utmost stretch, holding in his left hand the veiled sigil, and
in his right the sword of Art erect, at the same time stamping thrice upon the
ground with his right foot.
K. The veiled and covered sigil is then to be placed in the Northern part
of the Hall, at the edge of the circle, and the Magician then employs the
oration of the Hierophant from the throne of the East, modifying it slightly,
as follows: "The Voice {152} of the Exorcism said unto me; let me shroud
myself in darkness, peradventure thus may I manifest myself in Light," &c.
The Magician then proclaims aloud that the Mystic Circumambulation will take
place.
L. The Magician takes up the sigil in his left hand, and circumambulates
the magic circle once, then passes to the South and halts. He stands (having
lain his sigil on the ground) between it and the West, repeats the oration of
the Kerux, and again consecrates it with water and with fire. Then takes it
in his hand, facing westward, saying: "Creature of ... twice consecrate, thou
mayest approach the Gate of the West."
M. The Magician now moves to the West of the magical circle, holds the
sigil in his left hand and the Sword in his right, faces S.W., "and again"
"astrally masks himself with the Form of the Spirit:" and for the first time
partially opens the covering, without, however, entirely removing it. He then
smites it once with the flat blade of this sword, saying in a loud, clear and
firm voice: "Thou canst not pass from concealment unto manifestation, save by
virtue of the Name HB:Mem-final HB:Yod HB:Heh HB:Lamed HB:Aleph . 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!" He
then reveils the sigil.
N. Operations in L repeated at the North.
O. Processes in M are repeated in the N.W. Magician then passes to the
East, takes up sigil in left hand, and Lotus Wand in right; "assumes the mask"
"of the Spirit-Form;" smites sigil with Lotus Wand and says: "Thou canst not
pass from concealment unto manifestation save by virtue of the name
HB:Heh HB:Vau HB:Heh HB:Yod . After the formless and the void and the Darkness, there
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 harmonious 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.
P. He then re-covers sigil and passes on to the altar laying it thereon as
before shown. He then passes to the East of the Altar holding the sigil and
sword as explained. Then doth he rehearse a most potent conjuration and
invocation of that Spirit unto visible appearance, using and reiterating all
the Divine angelic and magical names appropriate to this end, neither omitting
the signs, seals, sigilla, lineal figures, signatures and the like, from that
conjuration.
Q. The Magician now elevates the covered sigil towards Heaven, removes the
veil entirely (leaving it yet corded); crying in a loud voice: "Creature of
... long hast thou dwelt in Darkness, quit the Night and seek the Day." He
then replaces it on the altar, holds the magical sword erect above it, the
pommel immediately above the centre thereof, and says: "By all the Names,
powers, and rites already rehearsed, I conjure Thee thus unto visible
appearance." Then the Mystic words. {153}
R. Saith the Magician: "As the Light hidden in the Darkness can manifest
therefrom, SO SHALT THOU become manifest from concealment unto manifestation."
He then takes up sigil, stands to the East of the Altar and faces West. He
shall then rehearse a long conjuration to the powers and Spirits immediately
superior unto that one which he seeks to invoke: "that they shall force him to"
"manifest himself unto visible appearance." He then places the sigil between
the pillars, himself at the East facing West. Then in the sign of the Enterer
doth he direct the whole current of his will upon the sigil. Thus he
continueth until such time as he shall perceive his will-power to be
weakening, when he protects himself from the reflex of the current by the sign
of silence, and then drops his hands. He now looks towards the Quarter that
the Spirit is to appear in, and he should now see the first signs of his
visible manifestation. If he be "not" thus faintly visible, let the Magician
repeat the Conjuration of the Superiors of the Spirit; "from the place of the"
"Throne of the East." And this conjuration may be repeated thrice, each time
ending with a new projection of will in the sign of the Enterer, &c. But if
at the third time of repetition he appeareth not, then be it known that there
is an error in the working. So let the Master of Evocations replace the sigil
upon the altar, holding the sword as usual, and thus doing "let him repeat a"
"humble prayer unto the Great Gods of Heaven to grant unto him the force"
"necessary correctly to complete that evocation."
He is then to take back the Sigil to between the Pillars, and repeat the
former processes; "when assuredly that Spirit will begin to manifest, but in a"
"misty and ill-defined form."
(But if, as is probable, the operator be naturally inclined unto evocation,
then might that Spirit perchance manifest earlier in the ceremony than this:
still the ceremony itself is to be performed up to this point, whether he be
there or no.)
Now so soon as the Magician shall see the visible manifestation of that
spirit's presence, he shall quit the station of the Hierophant and consecrate
afresh with Water and with Fire the Sigil of the evoked Spirit.
S. Now doth the Master of the Evocation remove from the sigil the
restricting cord; and, holding the freed sigil in his left hand, he smites it
with the flat blade of his sword; exclaiming: "By and in the Names of ...... I
do invoke upon thee the power of {p}erfect manifestation unto visible
appearance!"
He then circumambulates the circle thrice, holding the sigil in his "right"
hand.
T. The Magician, standing in the place of the Hierophant, but turning
towards the place of the Spirit, and fixing his attention thereon, now reads a
"potent invocation of the Spirit" unto visible appearance; having previously
placed the sigil on the ground, within the circle at the quarter where the
Spirit appears. This invocation should be of some length, and should rehearse
and reiterate the Divine and other names consonant with the working. That
Spirit should now become fully and clearly visible, and should be able to
speak with a direct voice (if consonant with his nature). The Magician then
proclaims aloud that the Spirit N hath been duly and properly evoked, in
accordance with the sacred rites. {154}
U. The Magician now addresses and Invocation unto the Lords of the Plane of
the Spirit to compel him to perform that which the Magician shall demand of
him.
V. The Magician carefully formulates his demands, questions, &c., and
writes down any of the answers that may be advisable.
W. The Master of Evocations now addresses a conjuration unto the spirit
evoked, binding him to hurt or injure naught connected with him; or his
assistants; or the place; and that he fail not to perform that which he hath
been commanded, and that he deceive in nothing. He then dismisses that Spirit
by any suitable form such as those used in the four higher grades in the
Outer.
And if he will "not" go, then shall the Magician "compel" him by forces
contrary unto his nature. But he must allow a few minutes for the Spirit to
dematerialise the body in which he hath manifested; for he will become less
and less material by degrees. And note well that the Magician (or his
companions if he have any) shall "never" quit the circle during the process of
Evocations; or afterwards, till the Spirit be quite vanished, seeing that in
some cases and with some constitutions there may be danger arising from the
astral conditions and currents established; and that without the actual
intention of the Spirit to harm, although, if of a low nature, he would
probably endeavour to do so.
Therefore, before the commencement of the Evocation let the operator assure
himself that everything which may be necessary be properly arranged within the
circle.
But if it be actually necessary to interrupt the process, then let him stop
at that point, veil and re-cord the sigil if it have been unbound or
uncovered, recite a Licence to depart or banishing formula, and perform the
lesser Banishing rituals both of the Pentagram and Hexagram.9 Thus only may
he in comparative safety quit the circle.
HB:Heh
BOOK II
CONSECRATION OF TALISMANS
PRODUCTION OF NATURAL PHENOMENA
A. The place where the operation is done.
B. The Magical Operator.
C. The forces of Nature employed and attracted.
D. The Telesma; The Material Basis.
9 See "Liber O," THE EQUINOX, vol. i., No. 2.
E. In Telesmata, the selection of the matter to form a Telesma, the
preparation and arrangement of the place: The forming of the body of the
Telesma. In natural {155} phenomena, the preparation of the operation, the
formation of the circle, and the selection of the material basis; such as a
piece of earth, a cup of Water, a flame of fire, a pentacle, or the like.
F. The Invocation of the highest Divine forces; winding a cord thrice round
the Telesma or Material Basis; covering the same with a black veil and
initiating the blind force therein; naming aloud the "purpose" of the Telesma or
operation.
G. The Telesma or Material Basis is now placed towards the West, and duly
consecrated with water and with fire. The purpose of the operation and the
effect intended to be produced is then to be rehearsed in a loud and clear
voice.
H. Placing the Telesma or Material Basis at the foot of the altar, state
aloud the object to be attained, solemnly asserting that it "will" be attained:
and the reason thereof.
I. Announcement aloud that all is prepared and in readiness either for the
charging of the Telesma, or for the commencement of the operation to induce
the natural phenomenon. Place a good telesma or Material Basis within the
triangle. But a bad Telesma should be placed to the West of same, holding the
sword erect in the right hand for a good purpose, or its point upon the centre
of the Telesma for evil.
J. Now follow the performance of an Invocation to attract the desired
current to the Telesma or Material Basis, describing in the air above the
Telesma the lineal figures and sigils, &c., with the appropriate magical
implement. Then taking up the Telesma in the left hand, smite it thrice with
the flat blade of the sword of art. Then raise in the left hand (holding
erect and aloft the Sword in the right), stamping thrice upon the Earth with
the Right Foot.
K. The Telesma or Material Basis is to be placed towards the North, and the
operator repeats the oration of the Hierophant to the candidate in the same
form as given in the K section on Evocation. He then ordains the Mystic
Circumambulation.
L. He now takes up the Telesma or Material Basis, carries it round the
circle, places it on the ground, bars, purifies and consecrates it afresh,
lifts it with his left hand and turns facing West, saying: "Creature of
Talismans, twice consecrate," &c.
M. He now passes to the West with Telesma in left hand, faces S.W., partly
unveils Telesma, smites it once with Sword, and pronounces a similar speach to
that in this M Section of Evocations, save that instead of "appear in visible
form," he says: "take on therefore manifestation before me," &c. This being
done he replaces the veil.
N. Operations of L repeated.
O. Operations of M repeated in the North, and an oration similar to that in
section O on Evocation: Telesma, &c., being treated as the Sigil of the
Spirit, substituting for: "appear thou therefore in visible form," &c.: "take
on therefore manifestation before me," &c.
P. Similar to the P section on Invocations, except that in the prayer "to
visible appearance" is changed into: "to render irresistible this Telesma," or
"to render manifest this natural phenomenon of ...". {156}
Q. Similar to this Q section on Evocations, saying finally: "I conjure upon
thee power and might irresistible." Follow the Mystic Words.
R. Similar to this R section on Evocations. In the Telesma a flashing
Light of Glory should be seen playing and flickering on the Telesma, and in
the Natural Phenomena a slight commencement of the Phenomenon should be waited
for.
S. This being accomplished, let him take the Telesma or material Basis,
remove the cord therefrom, and smiting it with the Sword proclaim: "By and in
the name of ... I invoke upon thee the power of ...". He then circumambulates
thrice, holding the Telesma in his right hand.
T. Similar to this T section for Evocation, save that, instead of a Spirit
appearing, the Telesma should flash visibly, or the Natural Phenomena should
definitely commence.
U. Similar to the U section for Evocations.
V. The operator now carefully formulates his demands, stating what the
Telesma is intended to do; or what Natural Phenomenon he seeks to produce.
W. Similar to what is laid down in the W section for Invocations, save that
in case of a Telesma, no banishing ritual shall be performed, so as not to
decharge it, and in the case of Natural Phenomena it will usually be best to
state what operation is required. And the Material Basis should be preserved,
wrapped in white linen or silk all the time that the phenomenon is intended to
act. And when it is time for it to cease, the Material Basis, if Water, is to
be poured away: if Earth, ground to a powder and scattered abroad: if a hard
substance, as metal, it must be decharged, banished and thrown aside: or if a
Flame of Fire, it shall be extinguished: or if a vial containing Air it shall
be opened, and after that shall be rinsed out with pure water.
HB:Shin
BOOK III
PART HB:Aleph : INVISIBILITY.
A. The shroud of Concealment.
B. The Magician.
C. The guards of concealment.
D. The astral light to be moulded into the Shroud.
E. The equation of the symbols in the sphere of sensation.
F. The Invocation of the Higher: the placing of a Barrier without the
Astral Form: the clothing of the same with obscurity through the proper
invocation.
G. Formulating clearly the idea of becoming invisible: the formulation of
the exact distance at which the shroud should surround the physical body; the
consecration with water and fire so that their vapour may begin to form a
basis for the shroud. {157}
H. The beginning to formulate mentally a shroud of concealment about the
operator. The affirmation aloud of the reason and object of the working.
I. Announcement that all is ready for the commencement of the operation.
Operator stands in the place of the Hierophant at this stage: placing his left
hand in the centre of the triangle, and holding in his right the Lotus Wand by
the black end, in readiness to concentrate around him the Shroud of Darkness
and Mystery. (N.B. ___ In this operation as in the two others under the
dominion of HB:Shin a pantacle or Telesma, suitable to the matter in hand, "may"
be made use of: the which is treated as is directed for Telesmata.)
J. The operator now recites an exorcism of a shroud of Darkness to surround
him and render him invisible, and holding the wand by the black end, let him,
turning round thrice completely, describe a triple circle around him, saying:
"In the name of the Lord of the Universe," &c. "I conjure thee, O Shroud of
Darkness and of Mystery, that thou encirclest me, so that I may become
Invisible: so that, seeing me, men may see not, neither understand; but that
they may see the thing that they see not, and comprehend not the thing that
they behold! So mote it be!"
K. Now move to the North, face East, and say: "I have set my feet in the
North, and have said, 'I will shroud myself in Mystery and in Concealment.'"
Then repeat the oration: "The voice of my Higher soul," &c., and command the
Mystic Circumambulation.
L. Move round as usual to the South, and halt, formulating thyself as
shrouded in Darkness: on the right hand the pillar of fire, on the left the
pillar of cloud: both reaching from darkness to the glory of the Heavens.
M. Now move from between these pillars which thou hast formulated to the
West, and say: "Invisible I cannot pass by the Gate of the Invisible save by
virtue of the name of 'Darkness.'" Then formulate forcibly about thee the
shroud of Darkness, and say: "Darkness is my name, and concealment: I am the
Great One Invisible of the paths of the Shades. I am without fear, though
veiled in Darkness; for within me though unseen is the Magic of the Light!"
N. Repeat processes in L.
O. Repeat processes in M, but say: "I am Light shrouded in Darkness, I am
the wielder of the forces of the Balance."
P. Now concentrating mentally about thee the shroud of concealment pass to
the West of the altar in the place of the Neophyte, face East, remain
standing, and rehearse a conjuration by suitable names for the formulation of
a shroud of Invisibility around and about thee.
Q. Now address the Shroud of Darkness thus: "Shroud of Concealment, long
hast thou dwelt concealed! quit the light; that thou mayest conceal me before
men!" Then carefully formulate the shroud of concealment around thee and say,
"I receive thee as a covering and as a guard." {158}
Then the Mystic Words.
R. Still formulating the shroud say: "Before all magical manifestation
cometh the knowledge of the Hidden Light." Then move to the Pillars and give
the signs and steps, words, &c. With the Sign Enterer project now thy whole
will in one great effort to realise thyself actually "fading out" and becoming
invisible to mortal eyes: and in doing this must thou obtain the effect of thy
physical body actually, gradually becoming partially invisible to thy natural
eyes: as though a veil or cloud were formulating between it and thee. (And be
very careful not to lose self-control at this point.) But also at this point
is there a certain Divine Extasis and an exaltation desirable: for herein is a
sensation of an exalted strength.
S. Again formulate the shroud as concealing thee and enveloping thee, and
thus wrapped up therein circumambulate the circle thrice.
T. Intensely formulating the shroud, stand at the East and proclaim, "Thus
have I formulated unto myself this Shroud of Darkness and of Mystery, as a
concealment and a guard."
U. Now rehearse an invocation of all the Divine Names of Binah; that thou
mayest retain the Shroud of Darkness under thy own proper control and
guidance.
V. Now state clearly to the shroud what it is thy desire to perform
therewith.
W. Having obtained the desired effect, and gone about invisible, it is
requisite that thou shouldst conjure the forces of the Light to act against
that Shroud of Darkness and Mystery, so as to disintegrate it, lest any force
seek to use it as a medium for an obsession, &c. Therefore rehearse a
conjuration as aforesaid, and then open the Shroud and come forth out of the
midst thereof, and then disintegrate that shroud by the use of a conjuration
unto the forces of Binah, to disintegrate and scatter the particles thereof;
but affirming that they shall again be readily attracted at thy command. But
on no account must that shroud of awful Mystery be left without such
disintegration; seeing that it would speedily attract an occupant: which would
become a terrible vampire preying upon him who had called it into being. And
after frequent rehearsals of this operation, the thing may be almost done "per"
"nutum."
PART HB:Mem : TRANSFORMATIONS
A. The Astral Form.
B. The Magician.
C. The forces used to alter the Form.
D. The Form to be taken.
E. The Equation of the symbolism of the sphere of sensation.
F. Invocation of the Higher: The definition of the form required as a
delineation of blind forces, and the awakening of the same by its proper
formulation.
G. Formulating clearly to the mind the form intended to be taken: the
restriction {159} and definition of this as a clear form and the actual
baptism by water and by fire with the "mystic name of the adept."
H. The actual invocation aloud of the form desired to be assumed, to
formulate before you. The statement of the "desire" of the operator and the
"reason" thereof.
I. Announcement aloud that all is now ready for the operation of the
transformation of the Astral body. The Magician mentally places this form as
nearly as circumstances will admit in the position of the Enterer, himself
taking the place of the Hierophant; holding his wand by the black end ready to
commence the oration aloud.
J. Let him now repeat a powerful exorcism of the shape into which he
desires to transform himself, using the names, &c., belonging to the plane,
planet, or other Eidolon, most in harmony with the shape desired. Then
holding the wand by the black end, and directing the flower over the head of
the Form, let him say: "In the name of the Lord of the Universe, arise before
me, O form of ... into which I have elected to transform myself; so that
seeing me men may see the thing they see not, and comprehend not the thing
that they behold."
K. The Magician saith: "Pass towards the North shrouded in Darkness, O form
of ... into which I have elected to transform myself." Then let him repeat
the usual oration from the throne of the East, and then command the Mystic
Circumambulation.
L. Now bring the form round to the South, arrest it, formulate it there
standing between two great pillars of fire and cloud, purify it by water and
incense, by placing these elements on either side of the form.
M. Passing to the West and facing South-East formulate the form before
thee, this time endeavouring to render it physically visible; repeat speeches
of Hierophant and Hegemon.
N. Same as L.
O. Same as M.
P. Pass to East of Altar, formulating the form as near in the proportion of
the neophyte as may be. Now address a solemn invocation and conjuration by
Divine and other names appropriate to render the form fitting for the
transformation thereunto.
Q. Remain at East of Altar, address the form "child of Earth," &c.,
endeavouring now to see it physically; then at the words "we receive thee,"
&c., he draws the form towards him so as to envelop him, being very careful at
the same time to invoke the Divine Light by the Rehearsal of the Mystic Words.
R. Still keeping himself in the form the Magician says: "Before all magical
manifestation cometh the knowledge of the Divine Light." He then moves to the
pillars and gives the signs, &c., endeavouring with the whole force of his
will to feel himself "actually" and "physically" in the shape of the form desired.
At this point he must see, as if in a cloudy and misty manner, the outline of
the form enshrouding him, though not yet completely and wholly visible. When
this occurs, but not before, let him formulate himself as standing between the
vast pillars of Fire and of Cloud. {160}
S. He now again endeavours to formulate the form as if visibly enshrouding
him; and still astrally retaining the form, he thrice circumambulates the
place of working.
T. Standing at the East, let him thirdly formulate the shape which should
now appear manifest, and as if enshrouding him, even to his own vision; and
then let him proclaim aloud: "Thus have I formulated unto myself this
transformation."
U. Let him now invoke all the superior names of the plane appropriate to
the form, that he may retain it under his proper control and guidance.
V. He states clearly to the form, what he intends to do with it.
W. Similar to the W section of Invisibility, save that the conjurations,
&c., are to be made to the appropriate plane of the Form instead of to Binah.
PART HB:Shin : SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT.
A. The Sphere of Sensation.
B. The Augoeides.
C. The Sephiroth, &c., employed.
D. The Aspirant, or Natural Man.
E. The Equilibration of the Symbols.
F. The Invocation of the Higher, the limiting and controlling of the lower,
and the closing of the material senses to awaken the spiritual.
G. Attempting to make the Natural Man grasp the Higher by first limiting
the extent to which mere intellect can help him herein, then by the
purification of his thoughts and desires. In doing this let him formulate
himself as standing between the pillars of Fire and of Cloud.
H. The aspiration of the whole Natural Man towards the Higher Self, and a
prayer for light and guidance through his Higher Self addressed to the Lord of
the Universe.
I. The Aspirant affirms aloud his earnest prayer to obtain divine guidance;
kneels at the West of the Altar in the position of the candidate in the
"Enterer," and at the same time astrally projects his consciousness to the
East of the Altar, and turns, facing his body to the West, holding astrally
his own left hand with his astral left; and raises his astral right hand
holding the presentment of his Lotus Wand by the white portion thereof, and
raised in the air erect.
J. Let the Aspirant now slowly recite an oration unto the Gods and unto the
Higher Self (as that of the Second Adept in the entering of the vault), but as
if with his astral consciousness; which is projected to the East of the Altar.
(NOTE. ___ If at this point the Aspirant should feel a sensation of
faintness coming on, let him at once withdraw the projected astral, and
properly master himself before proceeding any further.)
Now let the Aspirant concentrate all his intelligence in his body, lay the
blade of his sword thrice on the Da<44>th point of his neck, and pronounce with
his whole will the words: "So help me the Lord of the Universe and my own
Higher Soul." {161}
Let him then rise facing East, and stand for a few moments in silence,
raising his left hand open, and his right hand holding the Sword of Art, to
their full lengths above his head: the head thrown back, the eyes lifted
upwards. Thus standing let him aspire with his whole will towards his best
and highest ideal of the Divine.
K. Then let the Aspirant pass unto the North, and facing East solemnly
repeat the Oration of the Hierophant, as before endeavouring to project the
speaking conscious self to the place of the Hierophant (in this case the
Throne of the East).
Then let him slowly mentally formulate before him the Eidolon of a Great
Angelic torch-bearer: standing before him as if to lead and light his way.
L. Following it, let the Aspirant circumambulate and pass to the South,
there let him halt and aspire with his whole will: First to the Mercy side of
the Divine Ideal, and then unto the Severity thereof. And then let him
imagine himself as standing between two great pillars of Fire and of Cloud,
whose bases indeed are buried in black enrolling clouds of darkness: which
symbolise the chaos of the world of Assiah, but whose summits are lost in
glorious light undying: penetrating unto the white Glory of the Throne of the
Ancient of Days.
M. Now doth the Aspirant move unto the West; faces South-West, repeats
alike the speeches of the Hiereus and Hegemon.
N. After another circumambulation the Adept Aspirant halts at the South and
repeats the meditations in L.
O. And as he passes unto the East, he repeats alike the words of the
Hierophant and of the Hegemon.
P. And so he passes to the West of the Altar, led ever by the Angel torch-
bearer. And he lets project his astral, and he lets implant therein his
consciousness: and his body knows what time his soul passes between the
pillars, and prayeth the great prayer of the Hierophant.
Q. And now doth the Aspirant's soul re-enter unto his gross form, and he
draws in divine extasis of the glory ineffable which is in the Bornless
Beyond. And so meditating doth he arise and lift to the heavens his hand, and
his eyes, and his hopes, and concentrating so his Will on the Glory, low
murmurs he the Mystic Words of Power.
R. So also doth he presently repeat the words of the Hierophant concerning
the Lamp of the Kerux, and so also passeth he by the East of the Altar unto
between the Pillars, and standing between them (or formulating them if they be
not there, as it appears unto me) so raises he his heart unto the highest
Faith, and so he meditates upon the Highest Godhead he can dream on, or dream
of. Then let him grope with his hands in the darkness of his ignorance: and
in the "Enterer" sign invoke the power that it remove the darkness from his
Spiritual Vision. So let him then endeavour to behold before him in the Place
of the Throne of the East a certain Light or Dim Glory which shapeth itself
into a form.
(NOTE. ___ And this can be beholden only by the Mental Vision: Yet owing
unto the {162} Spiritual Exaltation of the Adept it may sometimes appear as if
he beheld it with his mortal Eye.)
Then let him withdraw awhile from such contemplation, and formulate for his
equilibration once more the pillars of the Temple of Heaven.
S. And so again does he aspire to see the Glory enforming: and when this is
accomplished he thrice circumambulateth, reverently saluting with the
"Enterer" the Place of Glory.
T. Now let the Aspirant stand opposite unto the Place of that Light, and
let him make deep meditation and contemplation thereon: presently also
imagining it to enshroud him and envelop, and again end endeavouring to
identify himself with its Glory. So let him exalt himself in the likeness or
Eidolon of a Colossal Power, and endeavour to realise that "this" is the only
"true" Self: And that one Natural Man is, as it were, the Base and Throne
thereof: and let him do this with due and meek reverence and awe. And
thereafter he shall presently proclaim aloud: "Thus at length have I been
permitted to begin to comprehend the Form of my Higher Self."
U. Now doth the Aspirant make treaty of that Augoeides to render
comprehensible what things may be necessary for his instruction and
comprehension.
V. And he consults it in any matter wherein he may have especially sought
for guidance from the Beyond.
W. And, lastly, let the Aspirant endeavour to formulate a link between the
Glory and his Self-hood: and let him render his obligation of purity of mind
before it, avoiding in this any tendency towards fanaticism or spiritual
pride.
And let the Adept remember that this process here set forth is on no
account to be applied to endeavouring to come in contact with the Higher Soul
or Genius of "another." Else thus assuredly will he be led into error,
hallucination, or even mania.
HB:Vau
BOOK IV
DIVINATION
A. The Form of Divination employed.
B. The Diviner.
C. The Forces acting in the Divination.
D. The Subject of the Divination.
E. The Preparation of all things necessary, and the right understanding of
the process so as to formulate a connecting-link between the process employed
and the Macrocosm. {163}
F. Invocation of the Higher: arrangement of the Scheme of Divination, and
initiation of the forces thereof.
G. The first entry into the matter: First assertion of limits and
correspondences: beginning of the working.
H. The actual and careful formulation of the question demanded: and
consideration of all its correspondences and their classification.
I. Announcement aloud that all the correspondences taken are correct and
perfect: the Diviner places his hand upon the instrument of Divination:
standing at the East of the Altar, and prepares to invoke the forces required
in the Divination.
J. Solemn invocation of the necessary spiritual forces to aid the Diviner
in the Divination. Then let him say: "Arise before me clear as a mirror, O
magical vision requisite for the accomplishment of this divination."
K. Accurately define the term of the question: putting down clearly in
writing what is already "known," what is "suspected" or "implied," and what is
sought to be known. And see that thou verify in the beginning of the
judgment, that part which is already known.
L. Next let the Diviner formulate clearly under two groups or heads ("a") the
arguments "for," ("b") the arguments "against," the success of the subject of one
divination, so as to be able to draw a preliminary conclusion therefrom on
either side.
M. First formulation of a conclusive judgment from the premises already
obtained.
N. Same as section L.
O. Formulation of a second judgment, this time of the further developments
arising from those indicated in the previous process of judgment, which was a
preliminary to this operation.
P. The comparison of the first preliminary judgment with one second
judgment developing therefrom: so as to enable the Diviner to form an idea of
the probable action of "forces beyond the actual plane" by the invocation of an
angelic figure consonant to the process; and in this matter take care not to
mislead thy judgment through the action of thine own preconceived ideas; but
only relying ___ after due tests ___ on the indication afforded thee by the
angelic form. And know, unless the form be of an angelic nature, its
indication will not be reliable; seeing, that if it be an elemental, it will
be below the plane desired.
Q. The Diviner now completely and thoroughly formulates his whole judgment
as well for the immediate future as for the development thereof, taking into
account the knowledge and indications given him by the angelic form.
R. Having this result before him, let the Diviner now formulate a fresh
divination process, based on the conclusions at which he has arrived, so as to
form a basis for a further working.
S. Formulates the sides for and against for a fresh judgment, and deduces
conclusion from fresh operation. {164}
T. The Diviner then compares carefully the whole judgment and decisions
arrived at with their conclusions, and delivers now plainly a succinct and
consecutive judgment thereon.
U. The Diviner gives advice to the Consultant as to what use he shall make
of the judgment.
V. The Diviner formulates clearly with what forces it may be necessary to
work in order to combat the Evil, or fix the Good, promised by the Divination.
W. Lastly, remember that unto thee a divination shall be as a sacred work
of the Divine Magic of Light, and not to be performed to pander unto thy
curiosity regarding the secrets of another. And if by this means thou shalt
arrive at a knowledge of another's secrets, thou shalt respect and not betray
them.
HB:Heh
BOOK V
ALCHEMICAL PROCESSES.
A. The Curcurbite or The Alembic.
B. The Alchemist.
C. The processes and forces employed.
D. The matter to be transmuted.
E. The selection of the Matter to be transmuted, and the Formation,
cleansing and disposing of all the necessary vessels, materials, &c., for the
working of the process.
F. General Invocation of the Higher Forces to Action. Placing of the
Matter within the curcurbite or philosophic egg, and invocation of a blind
force to action therein, in darkness and in silence.
G. The beginning of the actual process: the regulation and restriction of
the proper degree of Heat and Moisture to be employed in the working. First
evocation followed by first distillation.
H. The taking up of the residuum which remaineth after the distillation
from the curcurbite or alembic: the grinding thereof to form a powder in a
mortar. This powder is then to be placed again in the curcurbite. The fluid
already distilled is to be poured again upon it. The curcurbite or
philosophic egg is to be closed.
I. The curcurbite or Egg Philosophic being hermetically sealed, the
Alchemist announces aloud that all is prepared for the invocation of the
forces necessary to accomplish the work. The Matter is then to be placed upon
an Altar with the elements and four weapons thereon: upon the white triangle,
and upon a flashing Tablet of a "General" Nature, in harmony with the matter
selected for the working. Standing now in {165} the place of the Hierophant
at the East of the Altar, the Alchemist should place his left hand upon the
top of the curcurbite, raise his right hand holding the Lotus Wand by the
Aries band (for that in Aries is the Beginning of the Life of the Year): ready
to commence the general Invocation of the Forces of the Divine Light to
operate in the work.
J. The pronouncing aloud of the Invocation of the requisite General Forces,
answering to the class of alchemical work to be performed. The conjuring of
the necessary Forces to act in the curcurbite for the work required. The
tracing in the air above it with appropriate magical weapon the necessary
lineal figures, signs, sigils and the like. Then let the Alchemist say: "So
help me the Lord of the Universe and my own Higher soul." Then let him raise
the curcurbite in the air with both hands, saying: "Arise herein to action, Ye
Forces of Light Divine."
K. Now let the Matter putrefy in Balneum Mariae in a very gentle heat,
until darkness beginneth to supervene: and even until it becometh entirely
black. If from its nature the Mixture will not admit of entire blackness,
examine it astrally till there is the astral appearance of the thickest
possible blackness, and thou mayest also evoke an elemental Form to tell thee
if the blackness be sufficient: but be thou sure that in this latter thou art
not deceived, seeing that the nature of such an elemental will be deceptive
from the nature of the symbol of Darkness, wherefore ask thou of him nothing
"further" concerning the working at this stage, but only concerning the
blackness, and this can be further tested by the elemental itself, which
should be either black or clad in an intensely black robe. (Note: for the
evocation of this spirit use the names, forces, and correspondences of
Saturn.)
"When" the mixture be sufficiently black, then take the curcurbite out of the
Balneum Mariae and place it to the north of the Altar and perform over it a
solemn invocation of the forces of Saturn to act therein: holding the wand by
the black band, then say: "The voice of the Alchemist," &c. The curcurbite is
then to be unstopped and the Alembic Head fitted on for purposes of
distillation. (NOTE. ___ In all such invocations a flashing tablet should be
used whereon to stand the curcurbite. Also certain of the processes may take
weeks, or even months to obtain the necessary force, and this will depend on
the Alchemist rather than on the matter.)
L. Then let the Alchemist distil with a gentle heat until nothing remaineth
to come over. Let him then take out the residuum and grind it into a powder:
replace this powder in the curcurbite, and pour again upon it the fluid
"previously distilled."
The curcurbite is then to be placed again in Balneum Mariae in a gentle
heat. When it seems fairly re-dissolved (irrespective of colour) let it be
taken out of the bath. It is now to undergo another magical ceremony.
M. Now place the curcurbite to the West of the Altar, holding the Lotus
Wand by the black end, perform a magical invocation of the Moon in her
decrease and of Cauda Draconis. The curcurbite is then to be exposed to the
moonlight (she being in her {166} decrease) for nine consecutive nights,
commencing at full moon. The Alembic Head is then to be fitted on.
N. Repeat process set forth in section L.
O. The curcurbite is to be placed to the East of the Altar, and the
Alchemist performs an invocation of the Moon in her increase, and of Caput
Draconis (holding Lotus Wand by white end) to act upon the matter. The
curcurbite is now to be exposed for nine consecutive nights (ending with the
Full Moon) to the Moon's Rays.
(In this, as in all similar exposures, it matters not if such nights be
overclouded, so long as the vessel be placed in such a position that it "would"
receive the direct rays, did the cloud withdraw.)
P. The curcurbite is again to be placed on the white triangle upon the
Altar. The Alchemist performs an invocation of the forces of the sun to act
in the curcurbite. It is then to be exposed to the rays of the sun for twelve
hours each day: from 8.30 A.M. to 8.30 P.M. (This should be done preferably
when the sun is strongly posited in the Zodiac, but it "can" be done at some
other times, though "never" when he is in Scorpio, Libra, Capricornus or
Aquarius.)
Q. The curcurbite is again placed upon the white triangle upon the Altar.
The Alchemist repeats the words: "Child of Earth, long hast thou dwelt," &c.,
then holding above it the Lotus Wand by the white end, he says: "I formulate
in thee the invoked forces of Light," and repeats the mystic words. At this
point keen and bright flashes of light should appear in the curcurbite, and
the mixture itself (as far as its nature will permit) should be clear. Now
invoke an Elemental from the curcurbite consonant to the Nature of the
Mixture, and judge by the nature of the colour of its robes and their
brilliancy whether the matter has attained to the right condition. But if the
Flashes do "not" appear, and if the robes of the elemental be not Brilliant and
Flashing, then let the curcurbite stand within the white triangle for seven
days: having on the right hand of the Apex of the triangle a flashing tablet
of the Sun, and in the left hand one of the Moon. Let it not be moved or
disturbed all those seven days; but not in the dark, save at night. Then let
the operation as aforementioned be repeated over the curcurbite, and this
process may be repeated altogether three times if the flashing light cometh
not. For without this latter the work would be useless. But if after three
repetitions it still appear not, it is a sign that there hath been an error in
one working; such being either in the disposition of the Alchemist, or in the
management of the curcurbite. Wherefore let the lunar and the solar
invocations and exposures be replaced, when without doubt ___ if these be done
with care (and more especially those of Caput Draconis and Cauda Draconis with
those of the Moon as taught, for these have great force materially) ___ then
without doubt shall that flashing light manifest itself in the curcurbite.
R. Holding the Lotus Wand by the white end, the Alchemist now draws over
the curcurbite the symbol of the Flaming Sword as if descending into the
mixture. Then let him place the curcurbite to the East of the Altar. The
Alchemist stands between {167} the pillars, and performs a solemn invocation
of the forces of Mars to act therein. The curcurbite is then to be placed
between the Pillars (or the drawn symbols of these same) for seven days, upon
a Flashing Tablet of Mars.
After this period, fit on the Alembic Head, and distil first in Balneum
Mariae, then in Balneum Arenae till what time the mixture be clean distilled
over.
S. Now let the Alchemist take the fluid of the distillate and let him
perform over it an invocation of the forces of Mercury to act in the clear
fluid; so as to formulate therein the Alchemic Mercury: even the Mercury of
the philosophers. (The residuum of the Dead Head is not to be worked with at
present, but is to be set apart for future use.) After the invocation of the
Alchemic Mercury a certain Brilliance should manifest itself in the whole
fluid (that is to say, that it should not only be clear, but also brilliant
and flashing). Now expose it in an hermetic receiver for seven days to the
light of the Sun: at the end of which time there should be distinct flashes of
light therein. (Or an egg philosophic may be used; but the receiver of the
Alembic, if closed stopped, will answer this purpose.)
T. Now the residuum or Dead Head is to be taken out of the curcurbite,
ground small, and replaced. An invocation of the forces of Jupiter is then to
be performed over that powder. It is then to be kept in the dark standing
upon a Flashing Tablet of Jupiter for seven days. At the end of this time
there should be a slight Flashing about it, but if this come not yet, repeat
the operation, up to three times, when a faint flashing Light is "certain" to
come.
{Illustration on page 168 partly described and partly approximated:
The layout is as shown, but the Receiver is depicted as a cross section with
rounded bottom and slightly inward sloping sides, two horizontal lines out to
either side at top. In this outline is a circumscribed hexagram with point to
top to represent the distillate. The Curcurbite with dead head is represented
as two figures, to the left a cross section of a slender container with
rounded bottom and slightly inwardly sloping sides, horizontal lines out at
top. To the right is a small circle on a long closed shape formed by a half
circle at top and a larger half circle at bottom, smoothly connected by long
straight sides. There is a line vertically through this shape. In the center
of the figure is a symbol of a cup; formed of a crescent moon with horns up at
top, a circle in the center and a equilateral triangle with point up as the
base.
<EFBFBD>-----------------------------------------------<2D>
<EFBFBD> <20>_______<5F> <20>_______<5F> <20>
<EFBFBD> <20>Symbol <20> -----Sword------<2D>-- <20>Symbol <20> <20>
<EFBFBD> <20>of Aqu-<2D> <20> of <20> <20>
<EFBFBD> <20>arius <20> <20>_<EFBFBD> <20> Leo <20> <20>
<EFBFBD> <20>_______<5F> <20>_<EFBFBD> <20>_<EFBFBD> <20>_______<5F> <20>
<EFBFBD> <20>_<EFBFBD> <20>_<EFBFBD> C D <20>
<EFBFBD> <20>_<EFBFBD> u w e <20>
<EFBFBD> Receiver r i a <20>
<EFBFBD> containing Cup c t d <20>
<EFBFBD> distillate Shaped u h <20>
<EFBFBD> Hermetic r H <20>
<EFBFBD> Symbol. b e <20>
<EFBFBD> i a <20>
<EFBFBD> /\ t d <20>
<EFBFBD> <20>_______<5F> / \ <20>_______<5F> <20>
<EFBFBD> <20>Eagle <20> / \ <20>Symbol <20> <20>
<EFBFBD> <20> of <20> / \ <20> of <20> <20>
<EFBFBD> <20>Scorpio<69> /________\ <20>Taurus <20> <20>
<EFBFBD> <20>_______<5F> <20>_______<5F> <20>
<EFBFBD>-----------------------------------------------<2D>
DIAGRAM 58.
The Altar.}
U. A Flashing Tablet of each of the four Elements is now to be placed upon
the altar as shown in the figure, and thereon are also to be placed the
magical elemental weapons, as is also clearly indicated. The receiver
containing the distillate is now to be placed between the Air and Water
Tablets, and the curcurbite with the Dead Head between the Fire and Earth.
Now let the Alchemist form an invocation, using especially the Supreme Ritual
of the Pentagram,10 and the lesser magical implement appropriate. First, of
the Forces of the Fire to act in the curcurbite on the Dead Head. Second, of
those of Water to act on the distillate. Third, of the forces of the Spirit
to act in both (using the white end of the Lotus Wand). Fourth, of those of
the air to act on the distillate; and lastly, those of the earth to act on the
Dead Head. Let the curcurbite and the receiver stand thus for five
consecutive days, at the end of which time there should be flashes manifest in
both mixtures. And these flashes should be lightly coloured. {168}
V. The Alchemist, still keeping the vessels in the same relative positions,
but removing the Tablets of the elements from the Altar, then substitutes one
of Kether. This must be white with Golden Charges, and is to be placed on or
within the white triangle between the vessels. He then addresses a most
10 See "Liber O," THE EQUINOX, vol. i. No. 2.
solemn invocation to the forces of Kether; to render the result of the working
that which he shall desire, and making over each vessel the symbol of the
Flaming Sword.
This is the most important of all the Invocations; and it will only succeed
if the Alchemist keepeth himself closely allied unto his Higher Self during
the working of the invocation and of making the Tablet. And at the end of it,
if it have been successful, a Keen and Translucent Flash will take the place
of the slightly coloured Flashes in the receiver of the curcurbite; so that
the fluid should sparkle as a diamond; whilst the powder in the curcurbite
shall slightly gleam.
W. The distilled liquid is now to be poured from the receiver upon the
residuum of Dead Head in the curcurbite, and the mixture at first will appear
cloudy. It is now to be exposed to the sun for ten days consecutively (10 =
Tiphereth translating the influence of Kether). It is then again to be placed
upon the white triangle upon the altar, upon a flashing Tablet of Venus: with
a solemn invocation of Venus to act therein. Let it remain thus for seven
days: at the end of that time see what forms and colour and appearance the
Liquor hath taken: for there should now arise a certain softer flash in the
liquid, and an elemental may be evoked to test the condition. When this
softer flash is manifest, place the curcurbite into the Balneum Mariae to
digest with a "very" gentle heat for seven days. Place it then in Balneum
Arenae to distil, beginning with a gentile, and ending with a strong, heat.
Distil thus till nothing more will come over, even with a most violent heat.
Preserve the fluid in a closely stoppered vial: it is an Elixir for use
according to the substance from which it was prepared. If from a thing
medicinal, a medicine; if from a metal, for the purifying of metals; and
herein shalt thou use thy judgment. The residuum thou shalt place without
powdering into a crucible, well sealed and luted. And thou shalt place the
same in thine Athanor, bringing it first to a red, and then to a white, heat,
and this thou shalt do seven times on seven consecutive days, taking out the
crucible each day as soon as thou hast brought it to the highest possible
heat, and allowing it to cool gradually.
And the preferable time for this working should be in the heat of the day.
On the seventh day of this operation thou shalt open the crucible, and thou
shalt behold what "Form" and "Colour" thy Caput Mortuum hath taken.
It will be like either a precious stone or a glittering powder.
And this stone or powder shall be of magical Virtue in accordance with his
nature.
Finished is that which is written concerning the Formulae of the Magic of
Light.
: HB:Aleph HB:Vau HB:Heh HB:Koph-final HB:Vau HB:Resh HB:Bet HB:Vau
HB:Shin HB:Dalet HB:Qof HB:Heh {169}

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