Aleister
Crowley Section
The
Book Of The Law (Liber AL vel Legis)
The Old and New Commentaries to Liber AL
vel Legis (The Book Of The Law) Chapter II
by Aleister Crowley
Chapter I
Chapter III
The Second Chapter
AL II,1: "Nu! the hiding of Hadit."
The Old Comment
1. As Had, the root of Hadit, is the manifestation of Nuit,
so Nu, the root of Nuit, is the hiding of Hadit.
The New Comment
We see again set forth the complementary character of Nuith
and Hadith. Nu conceals Had because He is Everywhere in
the Infinite, and She manifests Him for the same reason.
See verse 3. Every Individual manifests the Whole; and
the Whole conceals every Individual. The Soul interprets
the Universe; and the Universe veils the Soul. Nature understands
Herself by becoming self-conscious in Her units; and the
Consciousness loses its sense of separateness by dissolution
in Her.
There has been much difficulty in the orthography (in sacred
languages) of these names. Nu is clearly stated to be 56,
{NV}; but Had is only hinted obscurely. This matter is discussed
later more fully; verses 15 and 16.
{WEH NOTE: "Hadit" is the spelling of "Bahadit" found
on the Stele. This is unusual in that most Egyptian spelling
of the period maintained the "Ba" prefix. Crowley
adopted the spelling from the Stele, and it is common as
well in Liber AL. This "Hadit" or "Bahadit" is
the winged sun disk, used over the entrances of temple doorways,
at the tops of stel and elsewhere in Egyptian art and architecture.
Interestingly, the full name of Ra-Hoor-Khuit is Ra-Heru-Khuti-Ba-Hadi,
Ra-Horus who flies into the disk of the sun. --- information
researched by Fr. Ebony. Liber AL was received during that
part of the year in which Ra-Heru-Khuti-Ba-Hadi was said
by the ancient Egyptians to rule the decan occupied by the
Sun. It is not known if Crowley was aware of this particular
deity being astrologically "on official watch" at
the time.}
AL II,2: "Come! all ye, and learn the secret that hath
not yet been revealed. I, Hadit, am the complement of Nu,
my bride. I am not extended, and Khabs is the name of my
House."
The Old Comment
2. Nuit is Infinite Extension; Hadit Infinite Contraction.
Khabs is the House of Hadit, even as Nuit is the house
of Khu, and the Khabs is in the Khu (I,8). These theologies
reflect mystic experiences of Infinite Contraction and
Expansion, while philosophically they are the two opposing
Infinities whose interplay gives Finity.
The New Comment
Khabs -- 'a star' -- is an unit of Nuit, and therefore Nuit
Herself. This doctrine is enormously difficult of apprehension,
even after these many years of study.
Hadit is the 'core of every star,' verse 6. He is thus the
Impersonal Identity within the Individuality of 'every man
and every woman.'
He is 'not extended;' that is, without condition of any
sort in the metaphysical sense. Only in the highest trances
can the nature of these truths be realized. It is indeed
a suprarational experience not dissimilar to those characteristic
of the "Star-Sponge" Vision previously described
that can help us here. The trouble is that the truth itself
is unfitted to the dualistic reason of "normal" mankind.
Hadit seems to be the principle of Motion which is everywhere,
yet is not extended in any dimension except as it chances
to combine with the "Matter" which is Nuit. There
can evidently be no manifestation apart from this conjunction.
A "Khabs" or Star is apparently any nucleus where
this conjunction has taken place. The real philosophical
difficulty about this cosmogony is not concerned with any
particular equation, or even with the Original Equation.
We can understand x = ab, x = a, b, & c; and also 0degrees
= pa + qb, whether pa - qb = 0 or not. But we ask how the
homogeneity of both Nuit and Hadit can ever lead to even
the illusion of "difference." The answer appears
to be that this difference appears naturally with the self-realization
of Nuit as the totality of possibilities; each of these,
singly and in combination, is satisfied or set in motion
by Hadit, to compose a particular manifestation. 0degrees
could possess no signification at all, unless there were
diverse dimensions wherein it had no extension. "Nothing" means
nothing save from the point of view of "Two," just
as "Two" is monstrous unless it is seen as a mode
of "Nothing."
The above explanation appears somewhat disingenuous, since
there is no means whatever of distinguishing any Union H
+ N = R from another. We must postulate a further stage.
R (Ra-Hoor-Khuit) Kether, Unity, is always itself; but we
may suppose that a number of such homogeneous positive manifestations
may form groups differing from each other as to size and
structure so as to create the illusion of diversity.
AL II,3: "In the sphere I am everywhere the centre,
as she, the circumference, is nowhere found."
The Old Comment
3. A further development of higher meaning. This verse suggests
an old mystical definition of God: "He whose centre
is everywhere and Whose circumference nowhere".
The New Comment
This is again interesting as throwing light on the thesis;
Every man and every woman is a star. There is no place
soever that is not a Centre of Light.
This Truth is to be realised by direct perception, not merely
by intellection. It is axiomatic; it cannot be demonstrated.
It is to be assimilated by experience of the Vision of the "Star-Sponge."
AL II,4: "Yet she shall be known & I never."
The Old Comment
4. The circumference of Nuit touches Ra-Hoor-Khuit, Kether;
but her centre Hadit is forever concealed above Kether.
Is not Nu the Hiding of Hadit, and Had the Manifestation
of Nuit? (I later, Sun in Libra, An. VII, dislike this
note; and refer the student to Liber XI and Liber DLV.
The New Comment
See later, verse 13, "Thou (i.e. the Beast, who is here
the Mask, or "per-sona," of Hadit) wast the knower." Hadit
possesses the power to know, Nuit that of being known. Nuit
is not unconnected with the idea of Nibbana, the "Shoreless
Sea," in which Knowledge is Not.
Hadit is hidden in Nuit, and knows Her, She being an object
of knowledge; but He is not knowable, for He is merely that
part of Her which She formulates in order that She may be
known.
AL II,5: "Behold! the rituals of the old time are black.
Let the evil ones be cast away; let the good ones be purged
by the prophet! Then shall this Knowledge go aright."
The Old Comment
5. A reference to certain magical formulae known to the scribe
of this book.
The purification of said rituals is in progress at this
time, An. V.
The New Comment
The 'old time' is the Aeon of the Dying God. Some of his
rituals are founded on an utterly false metaphysic and
cosmogony; but others are based on Truth. We mend these,
and end those.
This "Knowledge" is the initiated Wisdom of this
Aeon of Horus.
See Book 4, Part III, for an account of the new principles
of magick.
Note that Knowledge is Daath, Child of Chokmah by Binah,
and crown of Microprosopus; yet he is not one of the Sephiroth,
and his place is in the Abyss. By this symbolism we draw
attention to the fact that Knowledge is by nature impossible;
for it implies Duality and is therefore relative. Any proposition
of Knowledge may be written "ARB:" "A has
the relation R to B." Now if A and B are identical,
the proposition conveys no knowledge at all. If A is not
identical with B, ARB implies "A is identical with BC;" this
assumes that not less than three distinct ideas exist. In
every case, we must proceed either to the identity which
means ultimately "Nothing," or to divergent diversities
which only seem to mean something so long as we refrain from
pushing the analysis of any term to its logical elements.
For example, "Sugar is sugar" is obviously not
knowledge. But no more is this: "Sugar is a sweet white
crystalline carbo-hydrate." For each of these four terms
describes a sensory impression on ourselves; and we define
our impressions only in terms of such things as sugar. Thus "sweet" means "the
quality ascribed by our taste to honey, sugar, etc."; "white" is "what
champaks, zinc oxide, sugar, etc. report to our eyesight;" and
so on. The proposition is ultimately an identity, for all
our attempts to evade the issue by creating complications. "Knowledge" is
therefore not a "thing-in-itself;" it is rightly
denied a place upon the Tree of Life; it pertains to the
Abyss.
Besides the above considerations, it may be observed that
Knowledge, so far as it exists at all, even as a statement
of relation, is no more than a momentary phenomenon of consciousness.
It is annihilated in the instant of its creation. For no
sooner do we assent to ARB than ARB is absorbed in our conception
of A. After the nine-days' wonder of "The earth revolves
round the sun," we modify our former idea of Earth. "Earth" is
intuitively classed with other solar satellites. The proposition
vanishes automatically as it is assimilated. Knowledge, while
it exists as such is consequently "sub judice",
at the best.
What then may we understand by this verse, with its capital
K for "Knowledge?" What is it, and how shall it "go
aright?" The key is in the word "go." It cannot "be," as
we have seen above; it is the fundamental error of the "Black
Brothers" in their policy of resisting all Change, to
try to maintain it as fixed and absolute. But (as the Tree
of Life indicates) Knowledge is the means by which the conscious
mind, Microprosopus, reaches to Understanding and to Wisdom,
its mother and father, which reflect respectively Nuith and
Hadit from the Ain and Kether. The process is to use each
new item of knowledge to correct and increase one's comprehension
of the Subject of the Proposition. Thus ARB should tell us:
A is (not A, as we supposed) but A. This facilitates the
discovery A,R,C leading to A, is A(index2); and so on. In
practice, every thing that we learn about (e.g.) "horse" helps
us to understand -- to enjoy -- the idea. The difference
between the scholar and the schoolboy is that the former
glows and exults when he is reminded of some word like "Thalassa." Ourselves:-
What a pageant of passion empurples our minds whenever we
think of the number 93! Most of all, each new thing that
we know about ourselves helps us to realize what we mean
by our "Star."
Now, "the rituals of the old time," are no longer
valid vehicles; Knowledge cannot 'go aright' until they are
adapted to the Formula of the New Aeon. Their defects are
due principally to two radical errors. (1.) The Universe
was conceived as possessing a fixed centre, or summit; an
absolute standard to which all things might be referred;
an Unity, or God. (Mystics were angry and bewildered, often
enough, when attaining to "union with God" they
found him equally in all). This led to making a difference
between one thing and another, and so to the ideas of superiority,
of sin, etc., ending by absurdities of all kinds, alike in
theology, ethics, and science. (2) The absolute antithesis
between the pairs of opposites. This is really a corollary
of (1). There was an imaginary "absolute evil" which
made Manichaeanism necessary -- despite the cloaks of the
Causists -- and meant "That which leads one away from
God." But each man, while postulating an absolute "God" defined
Him unconsciously in terms of a Freudian Phantasm created
by his own wish-fulfilment machinery. Thus "God" and "Evil" were
really expressions of personal prejudice. A man who "bowed
humbly to the Authority of" the Pope, or the Bible,
or the Sanhedrim, or the Oracle of Apollo, or the tribal
Medicine-Man, none the less expressed truly his own Wish
to abdicate responsibility. In the light of this Book, we
know that the centre is everywhere, the circumference nowhere;
that "Every man and every woman is a star," a "Khabs," the
name of the house of Hadit; that "The word of Sin is
Restriction." To us, then, "evil" is a relative
term; it is "that which hinders one from fulfilling
his true Will." (E.g., rain is "good" or "bad" for
the farmer according to the requirements of his crops).
The Osirian Rituals inculcating self-sacrifice to an abstract
ideal, mutilation to appease an "ex cathedra" morality,
fidelity to a priori formulae, etc. teach false and futile
methods of acquiring false Knowledge; they must be 'cast
away' or 'purged'. The Schools of Initiation must be reformed.
AL II,6: "I am the flame that burns in every heart
of man, and in the core of every star. I am Life, and the
giver of Life, yet therefore is the knowledge of me the knowledge
of death."
The Old Comment
6. Hadit is the Ego or Atman in everything, but of course
a loftier and more secret thing than anything understood
by the Hindus. And of course the distinction between Ego
and Ego is illusion. Hence Hadit, who is the life of all
that is, if known, becomes the death of that individuality.
The New Comment
It follows that, as Hadit can never be known, there is no
death. The death of the individual is his awakening to
the impersonal immortality of Hadit. This applies less
to physical death than to the Crossing of the Abyss; for
which see Liber 418, Fourteenth Aethyr. One may attain
to be aware that one is but a particular 'child' of the
Play of Hadit and Nuit; one's personality is then perceived
as being a disguise. It is not only not a living thing,
as one had thought; but a mere symbol without substance,
incapable of life. It is the conventional form of a certain
cluster of thoughts, themselves the partial and hieroglyphic
symbols of an 'ego.' The conscious and sensible 'man' is
to his Self just what the printed letters on this page
are to me who have caused them to manifest in colour and
form. They are arbitrary devices for conveying my thought;
I could use French or Greek just as well. Nor is this thought,
here conveyed, more than one ray of my Orb; and even that
whole Orb is but the garment of Me. The analogy is precise;
therefore when one becomes "the knower," it involves
the 'death' of all sense of the Ego. One perceives one's
personality precisely as I now do these printed letters;
and they are forgotten, just as, absorbed in my thought,
the trained automatism of my mind and body expresses that
thought in writing, without attention on my part, still
less with identification of the extremes involved in the
process.
AL II,7: "I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am
the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. "Come
unto me" is a foolish word: for it is I that go."
The Old Comment
7. Hadit is both the Maker of Illusion and its destroyer.
For though His interplay with Nuit results in the production
of the Finite, yet His withdrawing into Himself is the
destruction thereof.
"...the axle of the wheel", another way of saying
that He is the Core of Things.
"... the cube in the circle." Cf. Liber 418, The
Vision and the Voice, 30th Aethyr.
"'Come unto me' is a foolish word: for it is I that
go." That is, Hadit is everywhere; yet, being sought,
he flies. The Ego cannot be found, as meditation will show.
The New Comment
"It is I that go." The Book Aleph must be consulted
for a full demonstration of this truth. We may say briefly
that Hadit is Motion, that is, Change or 'Love.' The symbol
of Godhead in Egypt was the Ankh, which is a sandal-strap,
implying the Power to Go; and it suggests the Rosy Cross,
the Fulfilment of Love, by its shape.
The Wheel and the Circle are evidently symbols of Nuith;
this sentence insists upon the conception of Lingam-Yoni.
But beyond the obvious relation, we observe two geometrical
definitions. The axle is a cylinder set perpendicularly to
the plane of the wheel; thus Hadit supplies the third dimension
to Nuith. It suggests that Matter is to be conceived as Two-dimensional;
that is, perhaps, as possessed of two qualities, extension
and potentiality. To these Hadit brings motion and position.
The wheel moves; manifestation now is possible. Its perception
implies three-dimensional space, and time. But note that
the Mover is himself not moved. The "cube in the circle" emphasizes
this question of dimensions. The cube is rectilinear (therefore
phallic no less than the axle); its unity suggests perfection
projected as a "solid" for human perception; its
square faces affirm balance, equity, and limitation; its
six-sidedness sets it among the solar symbols. It is thus
like the Sun in the Zodiac, which is no more than the field
for His fulfilment in His going. He, by virtue of his successive
relations with each degree of the circle, clothes Himself
with an appearance of "Matter in Motion," although
absolute motion through space is a meaningless expression
(Eddington, Op, cit.). None the less, every point in the
cube -- there are 2 of them -- has an unique relation with
every point in the circle exactly balanced against an equal
and opposite relation. We have thus Matter that both is and
is not, Motion that both moves and moves not, interacting
in a variety of ways which is infinite to manifest individuals,
each of which is unlike any other, yet is symmetrically supported
by its counterpart. Note that even at the centre of gravity
of the cube no two rays are identical except in mere length.
They differ as to their point of contact with the circle,
their right ascension, and their relation with the other
points of the cube.
Why is Nuith restricted to two dimensions? We usually think
of space as a sphere. "None ---- and two:" extension
and potentiality are Her only projections of Naught. It is
strange, by the way to find that modern mathematics says "Spherical
space is not very easy to imagine" (Eddington, Op.cit.p.158)
and prefers to attribute a geometrical form whose resemblance
to the Kteis is most striking. For Nuit is, philosophically
speaking, the archetype of the Kteis, giving appropriate
Form to all Being, and offering every possibility of fulfilment
of every several point that it envelops. But Nuith cannot
be symbolized as three-dimensional, in our system; each unit
has position by three spatial, and one temporal, coordinates.
It cannot exist, in our consciousness, with less, as a reality.
Each 'individual' must be a 'point-interval;' he must be
the product of some part of the Matter of Nuit (with special
energies) determined in space by his relations with his neighbours,
and in time by his relations with himself.
It is evidently "a foolish word" for Hadit to
say "Come unto me," as did Nuit naturally enough,
meaning "Fulfil thy possibilities;" for who can "come
unto" Motion itself, who draw near unto that which is
in very truth his innermost identity?
AL II,8: "Who worshipped Heru-pa-kraath have worshipped
me; ill, for I am the worshipper."
The Old Comment
8. He is symbolized by Harpocrates, crowned child upon the
lotus whose shadow is called Silence.
Yet His Silence is the Act of Adoration; not the dumb callousness
of heaven toward man, but the supreme ritual, the Silence
of supreme Orgasm, the stilling of all Voices in the perfect
rapture.
The New Comment
Harpocrates is also the Dwarf-Soul, the Secret Self of every
man, the Serpent with the Lion's Head. Now Hadit knows
Nuit by virtue of his 'Going' or 'Love.' It is therefore
wrong to worship Hadit; one is to be Hadit, and worship
Her. This is clear even from His instruction "To worship
me" in verse 22 of this chapter. Confer, Cap.I, v.9.
We are exhorted to offer ourselves unto Nuit, pilgrims
to all her temples. It is bad Magick to admit that one
is other than One's inmost self. One should plunge passionately
into every possible experience; by doing so one is purged
of those personal prejudices which we took so stupidly
for ourselves, though they prevented us from realizing
our true Wills and from knowing our Names and Natures.
The Aspirant must well understand that it is no paradox
to say that the Annihilation of the Ego in the Abyss is
the condition of emancipating the true Self, and exalting
it to unimaginable heights. So long as one remains "one's
self," one is overwhelmed by the Universe; destroy
the sense of self, and every event is equally an expression
of one's Will, since its occurrence is the resultant of
the concourse of the forces which one recognizes as one's
own.
AL II,9: "Remember all ye that existence is pure joy;
that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are
done; but there is that which remains."
The Old Comment
9. Hence we pass naturally and easily to the sublime optimism
of verse 9. The lie is given to the pessimism, not by sophistry,
but by a direct knowledge.
The New Comment
This verse is very thoroughly explained in Liber Aleph. "All
in this kind are but shadows" says Shakespeare, referring
to actors. The Universe is a Puppet-Play for the amusement
of Nuit and Hadit in their Nuptials; a very Midsummer Night's
Dream. So then we laugh at the mock woes of Pyramus and Thisbe,
the clumsy gambols of Bottom; for we understand the Truth
of Things, how all is a Dance of Ecstasy. "Were the
world understood, Ye would know it was good, a Dance to a
lyrical measure!" The nature of events must be "pure
joy;" for obviously, whatever occurs is the fulfilment
of the Will of its master. Sorrow thus appears as the result
of any unsuccessful -- therefore, ill-judged -- struggle.
Acquiescence in the order of Nature is the ultimate Wisdom.
One must understand the Universe perfectly, and be utterly
indifferent to its pressure. These are the virtues which
constitute a Master of the Temple. Yet each man must act
What he will; for he is energized by his own nature. So long
as he works "without lust of result" and does his
duty for its own sake, he will know that "the sorrows
are but shadows." And he himself is "that which
remains;" for he can no more be destroyed, or his true
Will be thwarted, than Matter diminish or Energy disappear.
He is a necessary Unit of the Universe, equal and opposite
to the sum total of all the others; and his Will is similarly
the final factor which completes the equilibrium of the dynamical
equation. He cannot fail if he would; thus, his sorrows are
but shadows - he could not see them if he kept his gaze fixed
on his goal, the Sun.
AL II,10: "O prophet! thou hast ill will to learn this
writing."
The Old Comment
10. The prophet who wrote this was at this point angrily
unwilling to proceed.
The New Comment
As related in Equinox I, VII, I was at the time of this revelation,
a rationalistic Buddhist, very convinced of the First Noble
Truth: "Everything is Sorrow." I supposed this
point of view to be an absolute and final truth -- as if
Apemantus were the only character in Shakespeare!
It is also explained in that place how I was prepared for
this Work by that period of Dryness. If I had been in sympathy
with it, my personality would have interfered. I should have
tried to better my instructions.
See, in Liber 418, the series of visions by which I actually
transcended Sorrow. But the considerations set forth in the
comment on verse 9 lead to a simpler, purer, and more perfect
attainment for those who can assimilate them in the subconscious
mind by the process described in the comment on verse 6.
It may encourage certain types of aspirant if I emphasize
my personal position. AIWAZ made no mistake when he spoke
this verse -- and the triumphant contempt of his tone still
rings in my ear! After seventeen years of unparalleled spiritual
progress, of unimaginably intense ecstasies, of beatitudes
prolonged for whole months, of initiations indescribably
exalted, of proof piled on proof of His power, His vigilance,
His love, after being protected and energized with incredible
aptness, I find myself still only too ready to grumble, nay
even to doubt. It seems as if I resented the whole business.
There art times when I feel that the amoeba, the bourgeois,
and the cow represent the ABC of enviable creatures. There
may be a melancholic strain in me, as one might expect in
a case of renal weakness such as mine. In any event, it is
surely a most overwhelming proof that AIWAZ is not myself,
but my master, that He could force me to write verse 9, at
a time when I was both intellectually and spiritually disgusted
with, and despairing of, the Universe, as well as physically
alarmed about my health.
AL II,11: "I see thee hate the hand & the pen;
but I am stronger."
The Old Comment
11. He was compelled to do so.
The New Comment
This compulsion was that of true inspiration. It was the
Karma of countless incarnations of struggle towards the
light. There is a sharp repulsion, physical and mental,
toward any initiation, like that towards death.
The above paragraph states only a part of the truth. I am
not sure that it is not an attempt to explain away the verse,
which humiliates me. I remember clearly enough the impulse
to refuse to go on, and the fierce resentment at the refusal
of my muscles to obey me. Reflect that I was being compelled
to make an abject recantation of practically every article
of my creed, and I had not even Cranmer's excuse. I was proud
of my personal prowess as a poet, hunter, and mountaineer
of admittedly dauntless virility; yet I was being treated
like a hypnotized imbecile, only worse, for I was perfectly
aware of what I was doing.
AL II,12: "Because of me in Thee which thou knewest
not."
The Old Comment
12. For the God was in him, albeit he knew it not.
The New Comment
The use of capitals "Me" and "Thee" emphasizes
that Hadit was wholly manifested in The Beast. It is to be
remembered that The Beast has agreed to follow the instructions
communicated to Him only in order to show that 'nothing would
happen if you broke all the rules.' Poor fool! The Way of
Mastery is to break all the rules -- but you have to know
them perfectly before you can do this; otherwise you are
not in a position to transcend them.
Aiwaz here explains that his power over me depended upon
the fact that Hadit is verily "the core of every star." As
is well known, there is a limit to the power of the hypnotist;
he cannot overcome the resistance of the Unconscious of his
patient. My own Unconscious was thus in alliance with Aiwaz;
taken between two fires, my conscious self was paralyzed
so long as the pressure lasted. It will be seen later --
verses 61 to 69 -- that my consciousness was ultimately invaded
by the Secret Self, and surrendered unconditionally, so that,
it proclaimed, loudly and gladly, from its citadel, the victory
of its rightful Lord. The mystery is indeed this, that in
so prosperous and joyous a city, there should still be groups
of malcontents whose grumblings are occasionally audible.
AL II,13: "for why? Because thou wast the knower, and
me."
The Old Comment
13. For so long as any answer remains, there is no thing
known. Knowledge is the loss of the Knower in the Known.
"And me" (not "and I"), Hadit was the
passive, which could not arise because of the existence of
the Knower; "and" implying further duality -- which
is Ignorance.
The New Comment
Hadit had to overcome the silly 'knower,' who thought everything
was Sorrow. Cf. "Who am I?" -- "Thou knowest" in
Chapter I.
I am far from satisfied with either of the above interpretations
of this verse. We shall see a little later, verses 27 ~sqq,
a general objection to "Because" and "why." Then
how is it that Hadit does not disdain to use those terms?
It must be for the sake of my mind. Then, "for why" is
detestably vulgar; and no straining of grammar excuses or
explains the "me."
We have two alternatives. The verse may be an insult to
me. My memory tells me, however, that the tone of the voice
of Aiwaz was at this point low, even, and musical. It sounded
like a confidential, almost deferential, clarification of
the previous verse, which had rung out with joyful crescendo.
The alternative is that the verse contains some Qabalistic
proof of the authority of Aiwaz to lay down the law in so
autocratic a manner. Just so, one might add weight to one's
quotation from Sappho, in the English, by following it up
with the original Greek.
The absence of all capital letters favours this theory.
Such explanation, if discovered, will be given in the Appendix.
{WEH NOTE: Appendix not extant} However, simply enough, the
solution begins with the idea that the small initial of 'because'
would be explained by a colon preceding it instead of a note
of interrogation, which may have been due to my haste, ignorance,
and carelessness. Then 'for why' may be understood: "for
the benefit of this Mr. Why -- to satisfy your childish clamour
for a reason -- I will now repeat my remarks in an alternative
form such that even your stupidity can scarcely fail to observe
that I have sealed my psychological explanation in cipher." We
find accordingly that the arising "of Me in Thee" constitutes
a state wherein "thou knewest not." By "knewest" we
may understand the function of Hadit, intellectually and
conjugally united with Nuit. (See Book 4, Part III, for GN,
the root meaning both 'to know' and 'to beget'). And 'not'
is Nuit, as in Cap. I. Now this idea explains that the arising
'of Me (Hadit) in Thee (The Beast)' is the fulfilment of
the Magical Formula of Hadit and Nuit. And to know Nuit is
the very definition of 'joy.' The next verse confirms this: "thou
(the Beast) wast the knower (Hadit) and (united with) me
(Nuit, as in Cap.I., verse 51 & others)." Finally,
Nuit is indicated by two different symbols 'not' (Gk OU)
and 'me' (Gk MH). Now OU MH was my Motto in the Grade of
Adeptus Exemptus; Aiwaz thus subtly reminds me that I was
pledged to deny the assertions of my intellectual and moral
consciousness.
He combines in these few words (a) a correct psychological
explanation of the situation, (b) a correct magical explanation
of that explanation, (c) a personal rebuke to which I had
no possible reply, involving a knowledge of my own mental
state which was superior to my own.
These two verses are sufficient in themselves to demonstrate
the praeter-human qualities of the Author of this Book.
AL II,14: "Now let there be a veiling of this shrine:
now let the light devour men and eat them up with blindness!"
The Old Comment
14. Enough has been said of the nature of Hadit; now let
a riddle of L.V.X. be propounded.
The New Comment
The subject changes. Hadit will give an Exordium upon Himself
in the next two verses. Then He will propound an ethical
doctrine so terrible and strange that men will be "devoured
and eaten up with blindness" because of it.
AL II,15: "For I am perfect, being Not; and my number
is nine by the fools; but with the just I am eight, and one
in eight: Which is vital, for I am none indeed. The Empress
and the King are not of me; for there is a further secret."
The Old Comment
15. I am perfect, being Not (31 LA or 61 AIN). My number
is Nine, by the fools (IX, the Hermit, Virgo: Yod and Mercury).
With the just I am Eight, VIII, Justice-Libra-Maat, Lamed
and, One in Eight, Aleph. Which is vital, for I am None
indeed. LA.
The Empress, Daleth III, the King, He, IV, are not of me,
III plus IV = VII.
The New Comment
See Appendix. {WEH NOTE: not available.}
AL II,16: "I am the Empress & the Hierophant. Thus
eleven, as my bride is eleven."
The Old Comment
16. I am the Empress and the Hierophant (Vau) III + V = VIII,
and VIII is XI, both because of the 11 letters in Abrahadabra
(= 418 = ChITH = Cheth = 8), the Key Word of all this ritual
and because VIII is not Leo, Strength, but Libra, Justice,
in the Tarot. (see 777)
The New Comment
See Appendix.{WEH NOTE: not available.}
AL II,17: Hear me, ye people of sighing!
The sorrows of pain and regret
Are left to the dead and the dying,
The folk that not know me as yet.
The Old Comment
17. This passage was again very painful to the prophet, who
took it in its literal sense.
But 'the poor and the outcast' are the petty thoughts and
the Qliphotic thoughts and the sad thoughts. These must be
rooted out, or the ecstasy of Hadit is not in us. They are
the weeds in the Garden that starve the Flower.
The New Comment
The dead and the dying, who know not Hadit, are in the Illusion
of Sorrow. Not being Hadit, they are shadows, puppets,
and what happens to them does not matter. If you insist
upon identifying yourself with Hecuba, your tears are natural
enough.
There is no contradiction here, by the way, with verses
4 and 5. The words 'know me' are used loosely as is natural
in a stanza; or, more likely, are used (as in the English
Bible) to suggest the root GN, identity in transcendental
ecstasy. Possibly 'not' and 'me' are once more intended to
apply to Nuit. With 'know' itself, they may be "Nothing
under its three forms" of negativity, action, and individuality.
AL II,18: "These are dead, these fellows; they feel
not. We are not for the poor and sad: the lords of the earth
are our kinsfolk."
The New Comment
This idea is confirmed. Those who sorrow are not real people
at all, not'stars' -- for the time being. The fact of their
being 'poor and sad' proves them to be 'shadows,' who 'pass
and are done.' The 'lords of the earth' are those who are
doing their Will. It does not necessarily mean people with
coronets and automobiles; there are plenty of such people
who are the most sorrowful slaves in the world. The sole
test of one's lordship is to know what one's true Will
is, and to do it.
AL II,19: "Is a God to live in a dog? No! but the highest
are of us. They shall rejoice, our chosen: who sorroweth
is not of us."
The New Comment
A god living in a dog would be one who was prevented from
fulfilling his function properly. The highest are those
who have mastered and transcended accidental environment.
They rejoice, because they do their Will; and if any man
sorrow, it is clear evidence of something wrong with him.
When machinery creaks and growls, the engineer knows that
it is not fulfilling its function, doing its Will, with
ease and joy.
AL II,20: "Beauty and strength, leaping laughter and
delicious languor, force and fire, are of us."
The New Comment
As soon as one realizes one's self as Hadit, one obtains
all His qualities. It is all a question of doing one's
Will. A flaming harlot, with red cap and sparkling eyes,
her foot on the neck of a dead king, is just as much a
star as her predecessor, simpering in his arms. But one
must be a flaming harlot -- one must let oneself go, whether
one's star be twin with that of Shelly, or of Blake, or
of Titian, or of Beethoven. Beauty and strength come from
doing one's Will; you have only to look at any one who
is doing it to recognize the glory of it.
AL II,21: "We have nothing with the outcast and the
unfit: let them die in their misery. For they feel not. Compassion
is the vice of kings: stamp down the wretched & the weak:
this is the law of the strong: this is our law and the joy
of the world. Think not, o king, upon that lie: That Thou
Must Die: verily thou shalt not die, but live. Now let it
be understood: If the body of the King dissolve, he shall
remain in pure ecstasy for ever. Nuit! Hadit! Ra-Hoor-Khuit!
The Sun, Strength & Sight, Light; these are for the servants
of the Star & the Snake."
The New Comment
There is a good deal of the Nietzschean standpoint in this
verse. It is the evolutionary and natural view. Of what
use is it to perpetuate the misery of Tuberculosis, and
such diseases, as we now do? Nature's way is to weed out
the weak. This is the most merciful way, too. At present
all the strong are being damaged, and their progress hindered
by the dead weight of the weak limbs and the missing limbs,
the diseased limbs and the atrophied limbs. The Christians
to the Lions!
Our humanitarianism, which is the syphilis of the mind,
acts on the basis of the lie that the King must die. The
King is beyond death; it is merely a pool where he dips for
refreshment. We must therefore go back to Spartan ideas of
education; and the worst enemies of humanity are those who
wish, under the pretext of compassion, to continue its ills
through the generations. The Christians to the Lions!
Let weak and wry productions go back into the melting-pot,
as is done with flawed steel castings. Death will purge,
reincarnation make whole, these errors and abortions. Nature
herself may be trusted to do this, if only we will leave
her alone. But what of those who, physically fitted to live,
are tainted with rottenness of soul, cancerous with the sin-complex?
For the third time I answer: The Christians to the Lions!
Hadith calls himself the Star, the Star being the Unit of
the Macrocosm; and the Snake, the Snake being the symbol
of Going or Love, and the Chariot of Life. He is Harpocrates,
the Dwarf-Soul, the Spermatozoon of all Life, as one may
phrase it. The Sun, etc., are the external manifestations
or Vestures of this Soul, as a Man is the Garment of an actual
Spermatozoon, the Tree sprung of that Seed, with power to
multiply and to perpetuate that particular Nature, though
without necessary consciousness of what is happening.
In a deeper sense, the word "Death" is meaningless
apart from the presentation of the Universe as conditioned
by "Time." But what is the meaning of Time?
There is great confusion of thought in the use of the word "eternal," and
the phrase "for ever." People who want "eternal
happiness" mean by that a cycle of varying events all
effective in stimulating pleasant sensations; i.e., they
want time to continue exactly as it does with themselves
released from the contingencies of accidents such as poverty,
sickness and death. An eternal state is however a possible
experience, if one interprets the term sensibly. One can
kindle "flamman aeternae caritatis"," for
instance; one can experience a love which is in truth eternal.
Such love must have no relation with phenomena whose condition
is time. Similarly, one's "immortal soul" is a
different kind of thing altogether from one's mortal vesture.
This Soul is a particular Star, with its own peculiar qualities,
of course; but these qualities are all "eternal," and
part of the nature of the Soul. This Soul being a monistic
consciousness, it is unable to appreciate itself and its
qualities, as explained in a previous entry; so it realizes
itself by the device of duality, with the limitations of
time, space and causality. The "Happiness" of Wedded
Love or eating Marrons Glaces is a concrete external non-eternal
expression of the corresponding abstract internal eternal
idea, just as any triangle is one partial and imperfect picture
of the idea of a triangle. (It does not matter whether we
consider "Triangle" as an unreal thing invented
for the convenience of including all actual triangles, or
vice versa. Once the idea Triangle has arisen, actual triangles
are related to it as above stated).
One does not want even a comparatively brief extension of
these "actual" states; Wedded Love though licensed
for a lifetime, is usually intolerable after a month; and
Marrons Glaces pall after the first five or six kilogrammes
have been consumed. But the "Happiness," eternal
and formless, is not less enjoyable because these forms of
it cease to give pleasure. What happens is that the Idea
ceases to find its image in those particular images; it begins
to notice the limitations, which are not itself and indeed
deny itself, as soon as its original joy in its success at
having become conscious of itself wears off. It becomes aware
of the external imperfection of Marrons Glaces; they no longer
represent its infinitely varied nature. It therefore rejects
them, and creates a new form of itself, such as Nightgowns
with pale yellow ribbons or Amber Cigarettes.
In the same way a poet or painter, wishing to express Beauty,
is impelled to choose a particular form; with luck, this
is at first able to recompense in him what he feels; but
sooner or later he finds that he has failed to include certain
elements of himself, and he must needs embody these in a
new poem or picture. He may know that he can never do more
than present a part of the possible perfection, and that
in imperfect imagery; but at least he may utter his utmost
within the limits of the mental and sensory instruments of
his similarly inadequate symbol of the Absolute, his vehicle
of human incarnation.
These suffer from the same defects as the other forms; ultimately, "Happiness" wearies
itself in the effort to invent fresh images, and becomes
disheartened and doubtful of itself. Only a few people have
wit enough to proceed to generalization from the failure
of a few familiar figures of itself, and recognize that all "actual" forms
are imperfect; but such people are apt to turn with disgust
from the whole procedure, and to long for the "eternal" state.
This state is however incapable of realization, as we know;
and the Soul understanding this, can find no good but in "Cessation" of
all things, its creations no more than its own tendencies
to create. It therefore sighs for Nibbana.
But there is one other solution, as I have endeavoured to
shew. We may accept (what after all it is absurd to accuse
and oppose) the essential character of existence. We cannot
extirpate or even alter in the minutest degree either the
matter or manner of any element of the Universe, here each
item is equally inherent and important, each aequipollent,
independent, and interdependent.
We may thus acquiesce in the fact that it is apodeictically
implicit in the Absolute to apprehend itself by self-expression
as Positive and Negative in the first place, and to combine
these primary opposites in an infinite variety of finite
forms.
We may thus cease either (1) to seek the Absolute in any
of its images, knowing that we must abstract every one of
their qualities from every one of these equally if we would
unveil it; or (2) to reject all images of the Absolute, knowing
that attainment thereof would be the signal for the manifestation
of that part of its nature which necessarily formulates itself
in a new universe of images.
Realizing that these two courses (the materialist's and
the mystic's) are equally fatuous, we may engage in either
or both of two other plans of action, based on assent to
actuality.
We may (1) ascertain our own particular properties as partial
projections of the Absolute; we may allow every image presented
to us to be of equally intrinsic and essential entity with
ourselves, and its presentation to us a phenomenon necessary
in Nature; and we may adjust our apprehension to the actuality
that every event is an item in the account which we render
to ourselves of our own estate. We dare not desire to omit
any single entry, lest the balance be upset. We may react
with elasticity and indifference to each occurrence, intent
only on the idea that the total, intelligently appreciated,
constitutes a perfect knowledge not indeed of the Absolute
but of that part thereof which is ourselves. We thus adjust
one imperfection accurately to another, and remain contented
in the appreciation of the righteousness of the relation.
This path, the "Way of the Tao," is perfectly
proper to all men. It does not attempt either to transcend
or to tamper with Truth; it is loyal to its own laws,and
therefore no less perfect than any other Truth. The Equation
Five plus Six is Eleven is of the same order of perfection
as Ten Million times Ten times Ten Thousand Million is One
Billion. In the Universe fomulated by the Absolute, every
point is equally the Centre; every point is equally the focus
of the forces of the whole. (In any system of three points,
any two may be considered solely with reference to the third,
so that even in a finite universe the sum of the properties
of all points is the same, though no two properties may be
common to any two points. Thus a circle, BCD, may be described
by the revolution of a line AB in a plane about the point
A; but also from the point C, or indeed any other point,
by the application of the proper analysis and construction.
We calculate the motion of the solar system in heliocentric
terms for no reason but simplicity and convenience; we could
convert our tables to a geocentric basis by mere mechanical
manipulation without affecting their truth, which is only
the truth of the relations between a number of bodies. All
are alike in motion, but we have arbitrarily chosen to consider
one of them as stationary, so that we may more easily describe
the movements of the others in regard to it, without complicating
our calculations by introduction of the movements of the
whole system as such. And for this purpose the Sun is a more
convenient standard than the Earth).
There is another Way that we may take, if we will; I say "another," though
it seems perhaps to some no more than development of the
other which happens to be proper to some people.
Even in the first Way, it is of all things necessary to
begin by exploring one's own Nature, so as to discover what
its peculiarities are; this is accomplished partly by introspection,
but principally by Right Recollection of the whole phantasmagoria
presented to it by experience; for since every event of life
is a symbol of part of the structure of the Soul, the totality
of experience must by the "Name" if the whole of
that part of the Soul which has so far uttered itself. Now
then, let us suppose that some Soul, having penetrated thus
far, should discover in its "Name" that it is a
Son truly begotten by the Spirit of Being upon the Body of
Form, and that it has power to understand itself and its
Father, with all that such heirship implies. Suppose further
that it be come to puberty, will it not be impelled to assert
itself as its Father's son? Will it not shake itself free
from the Form that bore and nourished and trained it, and
turn from its brothers and sisters and playmates? Will it
not glow and ache with the impulse to be utterly itself,
and find a Form fit to impress with its image, even as did
its Father aforetime?
If such a Soul be indeed its Father's son, he will not fear
to show lack of filial reverence, or presumption, if he forget
its family in the fervour of founding one of his own, of
begetting boys not better or braver indeed than his brothers,
girls not softer or sweeter indeed than his sisters, but
wholly his own, with his own defects and desires evoked by
enchantment of ecstasy when he dies to himself in the womb
of the witch who lusts for his life, and buys it with the
coin that bears his Image and Superscription.
Such is the secret of the Soul of the Artist. He knows that
he is a God, of the Sons of God; he has no fear or shame
in showing himself of the seed of his Father. He is proud
of that Father's most precious privilege, and he honours
him no less than himself by using it. He accepts his family
as of his own royal stock; every one is as princely as he
is himself. But he were not his Father's son unless he found
for himself a Form fit to express himself by multiplex reproductions
of his Image. He must admire himself in many costumes, each
emphatic of some elected elegance or excellence in himself
which would otherwise elude his homage by being hidden and
hushed in the harmony of his heart. This Form which shall
serve him must be softness' self to his impress, with exact
elasticity adapting itself to the strongest and subtlest
salients, yet like steel to resist all other stress than
his own, and to retain and reproduce surely and sharply the
image that his acid bites into its surface. There must be
no flaw, no irregularity, no granulation, no warp in its
substance; it must be smooth and shining, pure metal of true
temper.
And he must love this chosen Form, love it with fearful
fervour; it is the face of his Fate that craves his kiss,
and in her eyes Enigma blazes and smoulders; she is his death,
her body his coffin where he may rot and stink, or writhe
in damned dreams, self-slain, or rise in incorruption self-renewed,
immortal and identical, fulfilling himself wholly in and
by her, splashing all space with sparkling stars his sons
and daughters, each star an image of his own infinity made
manifest, mood after mood, by her magick to mould him when
his passion makes molten her metal.
Thus then must every Artist work. First, he must find himself.
Next, he must find the form that is fitted to express himself.
Next, he must love that form, as a form, adoring it, understanding
it, and mastering it, with most minute attention, until it
(as it seems) adapts itself to him with eager elasticity,
and answers accurately and aptly, with the unconscious automatism
of an organ perfected by evolution, to his most subtlest
suggestion, to his most giant gesture.
Next, he must give himself utterly up to that Form; he must
annihilate himself absolutely in every act of love, labouring
day and night to lose himself in lust for it, so that he
leave no atom unconsumed in the furnace of their frenzy,
as did of old his Father that begat him. He must realize
himself wholly in the integration of the infinite Pantheon
of images; for if he fail to formulate one facet of himself,
by lack thereof will he know himself falsely.
There is of course no ultimate difference between the Artist
as here delineated and him who follows the "Way of the
Tao", though the latter finds perfection in his existing
relation with his environment, and the former creates a private
perfection of a peculiar and secondary character. We might
call one the son, the other the daughter, of the Absolute.
But the Artist, though his Work, the images of himself in
the Form that he loves, is less perfect than the Work of
his Father, since he can but express one particular point
of view and that by means of one type of technique, is not
to be thought useless on that account, any more than an Atlas
is useless because it presents by means of certain crude
conventions a fraction of the facts of geography.
The Artist calls our attention away from Nature, whose immensity
bewilders us so that she seems incoherent, and unintelligible,
to his own interpretation of himself, and his relations with
various phenomena of nature expressed in a language more
or less common to us all.
The smaller the Artist, the narrower his view, the more
vulgar his vocabulary, the more familiar his figures, the
more readily is he recognized as a guide. To be accepted
and admired, he must say what we all know, but have not told
each other till it is tedious, and say it in simple and clear
language, a little more emphatically and eloquently than
we have been accustomed to hear; and he must please and flatter
us in the telling by soothing our fears and stimulating our
hopes and our self-esteem.
When an Artist -- whether in Astronomy, like Copernicus,
Anthropology, like Ibsen, or Anatomy, like Darwin -- selects
a set of facts too large, too recondite, or too "regrettable" to
receive instant assent from everybody; when he presents conclusions
which conflict with popular credence or prejudice; when he
employs a language which is not generally intelligible to
all; in such cases he must be content to appeal to the few.
He must wait for the world to awake to the value of his work.
The greater he is, the more individual and the less intelligible
he will appear to be, although in reality he is more universal
and more simple than anybody. He must be indifferent to anything
but his own integrity in the realization and imagination
of himself.
AL II,22: "I am the Snake that giveth Knowledge & Delight
and bright glory, and stir the hearts of men with drunkenness.
To worship me take wine and strange drugs whereof I will
tell my prophet, & be drunk thereof! They shall not harm
ye at all. It is a lie, this folly against self. The exposure
of innocence is a lie. Be strong, o man! lust, enjoy all
things of sense and rapture: fear not that any God shall
deny thee for this."
The Old Comment
22. Hadit now identifies himself with the Kundalini, the
central magical force in man.
This privilege of using wine and strange drugs has been
confirmed; the drugs were indeed revealed. (P.S. And they
have not harmed those who have used them in this Law.)
Follows a curse against the cringing altruism of Christianity
the yielding of the self to external impressions, the smothering
of the Babe of Bliss beneath the flabby old nurse Convention.
The New Comment
Drunkeness is a curse and a hindrance only to slaves. Shelley's
couriers were 'drunk on the wind of their own speed.' Any
one who is doing his true Will is drunk with the delight
of Life.
Wine and strange drugs do not harm people who are doing
their will; they only poison people who are cancerous with
Original Sin. In Latin countries where Sin is not taken seriously,
and sex-expression is simple, wholesome, and free, drunkenness
is a rare accident. It is only in Puritan countries, where
self-analysis, under the whip of a coarse bully like Billy
Sunday, brings the hearer to 'conviction of sin,' that he
hits first the 'trail' and then the 'booze.' Can you imagine
an evangelist in Taormina? It is to laugh.
This is why missionaries, in all these centuries, have produced
no conversions whatever, save among the lowest types of negro,
who resemble the Anglo-Saxon in this possession of the 'fear-of-God'
and 'Sin' psychopathies.
Truth is so terrible to these detestable mockeries of humanity
that the thought of self is a realization of hell. Therefore
they fly to drink and drugs as to an anaesthetic in the surgical
operation of introspection.
The craving for these things is caused by the internal misery
which their use reveals to the slave-souls. If you are really
free, you can take cocaine as simply as salt-water taffy.
There is no better rough test of a soul than its attitude
to drugs. If a man is simple, fearless, eager, he is all
right; he will not become a slave. If he is afraid, he is
already a slave. Let the whole world take opium, hashish,
and the rest; those who are liable to abuse them were better
dead.
For it is in the power of all so-called intoxicating drugs
to reveal a man to himself. If this revelation declare a
Star, then it shines brighter ever after. If it declare a
Christian -- a thing not man nor beast, but a muddle of mind
-- he craves the drug, no more for its analytical but for
its numbing effect. Lytton has a great story of this in 'Zanoni.'
Glyndon, an uninitiate, takes an Elixir, and beholds not
Adonai the glorious, but the Dweller on the Threshold; cast
out from the Sanctuary, he becomes a vulgar drunkard.
"This folly against self;" altruism is a direct
assertion of duality, which is division, restriction, sin,
in its vilest form. I love my neighbour because love makes
him part of me; not because hate divides him from me. Our
law is so simple that it constantly approximates to truism.
"The exposure of innocence." Exposure means "putting
out" as in a shop-window. The pretence of altruism and
so-called virtue "is a lie;" it is the hypocrisy
of the Puritan, which is hideously corrupting both to the
hypocrite and to his victim.
To "lust" is to grasp continually at fresh aspects
of Nuit. It is the mistake of the vulgar to expect to find
satisfaction in the objects of sense. Disillusion is inevitable;
when it comes, it leads only too often to an error which
is in reality more fatal than the former, the denial of 'materiality'
and of 'animalism.' There is a correspondence between these
two attitudes and those of the 'once-born' and 'twice-born'
of William James (Varieties of Religious Experience). Thelemites
are 'thrice-born;' we accept everything for what it is, without
'lust of result,' without insisting upon things conforming
with a priori ideals, or regretting their failure to do so.
We can therefore 'enjoy' all things of sense and rapture'
according to their true nature. For example, the average
man dreads tuberculosis. The "Christian Scientist" flees
this fear by pretending that the disease is an illusion in "mortal
mind." But the Thelemite accepts it for what it is,
and finds interest in it for its own sake. For him it is
a necessary part of the Universe; he makes "no difference" between
it and any other thing. The artist's position is analogous.
Rubens, for instance, takes a gross pleasure in female flesh,
rendering it truthfully from lack of imagination and analysis.
Idealist painters like Bourgereau awake to the divergence
between Nature and their academic standards of Beauty, falsify
the facts in order to delude themselves. The greatest, like
Rembrandt, paint a gallant, a hag, and a carcass with equal
passion and rapture; they love the truth as it is. They do
not admit that anything can be ugly or evil; its existence
justifies itself. This is because they know themselves to
be part of an harmonious unity; to disdain any item of it
would be to blaspheme the whole. The Thelemite is able to
revel in any experience soever; in each he recognizes the
tokens of ultimate Truth. It is surely obvious, even intellectually,
that all phenomena are interdependent, and therefore involve
each other. Suppose a + b + c = d, a = d - b - c just as
much as b = d - c - a. It is senseless to pick out one equation
as 'nice', and another as 'nasty'. Personal predilections
are evidence of imperfect vision. But it is even worse to
deny reality to such facts as refuse to humour them. In the
charter of spiritual sovereignty it is written that the charcoal-burner
is no less a subject than the duke. The structure of the
state includes all elements; it were stupid and suicidal
to aim at homogeneity, or to assert it. Spiritual experience
soon enables the aspirant to assimilate these ideas, and
he can enjoy life to the full, finding his True Self alike
in the contemplation of every element of existence.
AL II,23: "I am alone: there is no God where I am."
The Old Comment
23. The Atheism of God. "Allah's the Atheist! He owns
no Allah."
To admit God is to look up to God, and so not to be God.
The cures of duality.
The New Comment
This refers to the spiritual experience of Identity. When
one realizes one's Truth there is no room for any other
conception.
It also means that the God-idea must go with other relics
of the Fear born of Ignorance into the limbo of savagery.
I speak of the Idea of God as generally understood, God being
'something "not ourselves" that makes for righteousness,'
as Matthew Arnold victorianatically phrased his definition.
The whiskered wowser! Why this ingrained conviction that
self is unrighteous? It is the heritage of the whip, the
brand of the born slave. Incidentally, we cannot allow people
who believe in this 'God;' they are troglodytes, as dangerous
to society as any other thieves and murderers. The Christians
to the Lions!
Yet, in the reign of Good Queen Victoria, Matthew Arnold
was considered rather hot stuff as an infidel! Tempora mutantur,
p.d.q. when a Magus gets on the job.
The quintessence of this verse is (however) its revelation
of the nature of Hadit as a self-conscious and individual
Being, although impersonal. He is an ultimate independent,
and unique element in Nature, impenetrably aloof. The negative
electron seems to be his physical analogue. Each such electron
is indistinguishable from any other; yet each is determined
diversely by its relations with various positive complementary
electrons.
The verse is introduced at this juncture in order to throw
light on the passage which follows. It is important to understand
Hadit as the 'core of every star' when we come to consider
the character of those stars, his 'friends' or sympathetic
ideas grouped about him, who are 'hermits,' individualities
eternally isolated in reality though they may appear to be
lost in their relations with external things.
AL II,24: "Behold! these be grave mysteries; for there
are also of my friends who be hermits. Now think not to find
them in the forest or on the mountain; but in beds of purple,
caressed by magnificent beasts of women with large limbs,
and fire and light in their eyes, and masses of flaming hair
about them; there shall ye find them. Ye shall see them at
rule, at victorious armies, at all the joy; and there shall
be in them a joy a million times greater than this. Beware
lest any force another, King against King! Love one another
with burning hearts; on the low men trample in the fierce
lust of your pride, in the day of your wrath."
The Old Comment
24. Hermits -- See verse 15.
Our ascetics enjoy, govern, conquer, love, and are not to
quarrel (but see verses 59, 60 -- Even their combats are
glorious).
The New Comment
The Christians to the Lions!
A hermit is one who dwells isolated in the desert, exactly
as a soul, a star, or an electron in the wilderness of space-time.
The doctrine here put forth is that the initiate cannot be
polluted by any particular environment. He accepts and enjoys
everything that is proper to his nature. Thus, a man's sexual
character is one form of his self-expression; he unites Hadit
with Nuit sacramentally when he satisfied his instinct of
physical love. Of course, this is only one partial projection;
to govern, to fight, and so on, must fulfil other needs.
We must not imagine that any form of activity is ipso facto
incapable of supplying the elements of an Eucharist: suum
cuique. Observe, however, the constant factor in this enumeration
of the practices proper to 'hermits:' it is ecstatic delight.
Let us borrow an analogy from Chemistry. Oxygen has two hands
(so to speak) to offer to other elements. But contrast the
cordial clasp of hydrogen or phosphorus with the weak reluctant
greeting of chlorine! Yet hydrogen and chlorine rush passionately
to embrace each other in monogamic madness! There is no 'good'
or 'bad' in the matter; it is the enthusiastic energy of
union, as betokened by the disengagement of heat, light,
electricity, or music, and the stability of the resulting
compound, that sanctifies the act. Note also that the utmost
external joy in any phenomenon is surpassed a millionfold
by the internal joy of the realization that self-fulfilment
in the sensible world is but a symbol of the universal sublimity
of the formula "love under will."
The last two sentences demand careful attention. There is
an apparent contradiction with verses 59, 60. We must seek
reconcilement in this way: Do not imagine that any King can
die (v.21) or be hurt (v.59); strife between two Kings can
therefore be nothing more than a friendly trial of strength.
We are all inevitably allies, even identical in our variety;
to "love one another with burning hearts" is one
of our essential qualities.
But who then are the "low men," since "Every
man and every woman is a star?" The casus belli is this:
there are people who are veiled from themselves so deeply
that they resent the bared faces of us others. We are fighting
to free them, to make them masters like ourselves. Note verse
60, "to hell with them:" that is, let us drive
them to the 'hell' or secret sanctuary within their consciousness.
There dwells "the worm that dieth not and the fire that
is not quenched;' that is, 'the secret serpent coiled about
to spring' and 'the flame that burns in every heart of man'
-- Hadit. In other words, we take up arms against falsehood;
we cannot help it if that falsehood forces the King it has
imprisoned to assent to its edicts, even to believe that
his interests are those of his oppressor, and to fear Truth
as once Jehovah did the Serpent.
AL II,25: "Ye are against the people, O my chosen!"
The Old Comment
25. The cant of democracy condemned. It is useless to pretend
that men are equal; facts are against it. And we are not
going to stay, dull and contented as oxen, in the ruck
of humanity.
The New Comment
By 'the people' is meant that canting, whining, servile breed
of whipped dogs which refuses to admit its deity. The mob
is always afraid for its bread and butter -- when its tyrants
let it have any butter -- and now and then the bread has
60% substitutes of cattle-fodder. (Beast-food, even the
New York Times of November 13, 1918, E.V. has it.) So,
being afraid, it dare not strike. And when the trouble
begins, we aristocrats of Freedom, from the castle or the
cottage, the tower or the tenement, shall have the slave
mob against us. The newspapers will point out to us that "the
People" prefer to starve, and thank John D. Rockefeller
for the permission to do so.
Still deeper, there is a meaning in this verse applicable
to the process of personal initiation. By "the people" we
may understand the many-headed and mutable mob which swarms
in the slums of our own minds. Most men are almost entirely
at the mercy of a mass of loud and violent emotions, without
discipline or even organization. They sway with the mood
of the moment. They lack purpose, foresight, and intelligence.
They are moved by ignorant and irrational instincts, many
of which affront the law of self-preservation itself, with
suicidal stupidity. The moral Idea which we call "the
people" is the natural enemy of good government. He
who is 'chosen' by Hadit to Kingship must consequently be
'against the people' if he is to pursue any consistent policy.
The massed maggots of 'love' devoured Mark Antony as they
did Abelard. For this reason the first task of the Aspirant
is to disarm all his thoughts, to make himself impregnably
above the influence of any one of them; this he may accomplish
by the methods given in Liber Aleph, Liber Jugorum, Thien
Tao, and elsewhere. Secondly, he must impose absolute silence
upon them, as may be done by the "Yoga" practices
taught in Book 4 (Part I) Liber XVI, etc. He is then ready
to analyse them, to organize them, to drill them, and so
to take advantage of the properties peculiar to each one
by employing its energies in the service of his imperial
purpose.
AL II,26: "I am the secret Serpent coiled about to
spring: in my coiling there is joy. If I lift up my head,
I and my Nuit are one. If I droop down mine head, and shoot
forth venom, then is rapture of the earth, and I and the
earth are one."
The Old Comment
26. The Kundalini again. The mystic Union is to be practised
both with Spirit and with Matter.
The New Comment
The magical power is universal. The Free Man directs it as
He Will. Leave Him alone, or He will make you sorry you
tried to interfere!
There is here a reference to the two main types of the Orgia
of Magick; I have already dealt with this matter in the Comment.
Observe that in the "mystic" work, the union takes
place spontaneously; in the other, venom is shot forth. This
awakes the earth to rapture; not until then does union occur.
For, in working on the planes of manifestation, the elements
must be consecrated and made "God" by virtue of
a definite rite.
AL II,27: "There is great danger in me; for who doth
not understand these runes shall make a great miss. He shall
fall down into the pit called Because, and there he shall
perish with the dogs of Reason."
The Old Comment
27. The importance of failing to interpret these verses.
Unspirituality leads to the bird-lime of Intellect. The
Hawk must not perch on any earthly bough, but remain poised
on the ether.
The New Comment
Humanity errs terribly when it gets 'education', in the sense
of ability to read newspapers. Reason is rubbish; race-instinct
is the true guide. Experience is the great Teacher; and
each one of us possesses millions of years of experience,
the very quintessence of it, stored automatically in our
subconscious minds. The Intellectuals are worse than the
bourgeoisie themselves; a la lanterne! Give us Men!
Understanding is the attribute of the Master of the Temple,
who has crossed the Abyss (or "Pit") that divides
the true Self from its conscious instrument. (See Liber 418, "Aha"!
and Book 4, Part III). We must meditate the meaning of this
attack upon the idea of "Because." I quote from
my diary the demonstration that Reason is the Absolute, whereof
all Truths soever art merely particular cases. The theorem
may be stated roughly as follows.
The universe must be expressible either as +/- n, or as
Zero. That is, it is either unbalanced or balanced. The former
theory (Theism) is unthinkable; but Zero, when examined,
proves to contain the possibility of being expressed as n-n,
and this possibility must in its turn be considered as +/-
p.
This thesis appears to me a reductio ad absurdum of the
very basis of our mathematical thinking.
We knew before, of course, that all reasoning is bound to
end in some mystery or some absurdity; the above is only
one more antimony, a little deeper than Kant's, perhaps,
but of the same character. Mathematicians would doubtless
agree that all signs are arbitrary, elaboration of an abacus,
and that all 'truth' is merely our name for statements that
content our reason; so that it is lower than reason, and
within it; not higher and beyond, as transcendentalists argue.
I seem never to have seen this point before, though "men
of sense" instinctively affirm it, I suppose. The pragmatists
are mere tradesmen with their definition of Truth as 'the
useful to be thought; ' but why not 'the necessary to be
thought?' There is a sort of Berkeleyan subjectivity in this
view; we might put it: "All that we can know of Truth
is 'that which we are bound to think.' " The search
for Truth amounts, then, to the result of the analysis of
the Mind; and here let us remember my fear of the result
of that analysis as I expressed them a month ago.
This analysis is the right method after all.
Now, are we justified in assuming, as we always do, that
our reason is either correct or incorrect? That if any proposition
can be shown to be congruous with 'A is A' it is 'true,'
and so on? Does the 'reason' of the oyster comply with the
same canon as man's? We assume it. We make the necessity
in our thought the standard of the laws of Nature; and thus
implicitly declare Reason to be the Absolute. This has nothing
to do with the weakness of error in any one mind, or in all
minds; all that we rely on is the existence of some purely
mental standard by which we could always correct our thinking,
if we knew how. It is then this power which constrains our
thought, to which our minds owe fealty, that we call 'Truth;'
and this 'Truth' is not a proposition at all, but a 'Law!" We
cannot think what it is, obviously, as it is a final condition
of philosophical thought in the same way as Space and Time
are conditions of phenomenal thought. But, can there be some
third type of thought which can escape the bonds of that
as that can of this? "Samadhic realization," one
is tempted to rush in and answer --- while angels hesitate.
All my 'philosophic' thought, as above, is direct reflection
upon the meaning of Samadhic experience. Is it simply that
the reflections are distorted and dim? I have shown the impossibility
of any true Zero, and thus destroyed every axiom, blown up
the foundations of my mind. In failing to distinguish between
None and Two, I cannot even cling to the straw of 'phrases,'
since Time and Space are long since perished. None "is" Two,
without conditions; and therefore it is a positive idea,
and we are just as right to enquire how it came to be as
in the case of Haeckel's monad, or one's aunt's umbrella.
We are, however, this one small step advanced by our initiations,
that we can be quite sure this 'None-Two' is, since all possible
theories of Ontology simplify out to it.
Nevertheless, with whatever we try to identify this Absolute,
we cannot escape from the fact that it is in reality merely
the formula of our own Reason. The idea of Space arises from
reflection upon the relations of our bodily gestures with
the various objects of our senses. (Poincare - I note after
reading him, months later, as I revise this note - explains
this fully). So that a 'yard' is not a thing in itself, but
a term in the equations which express the Laws according
to which we move our muscles. My knowledge consists exclusively
of the mechanics of my own mind. All that I know is the nature
of its norm. The judgments of the Reason are arbitrary, and
can never be verified. Truth and Reality are simply the Substance
of the Reason itself. My demonstration that "None-Two
is the formula of the Universe" should then preferably
be re-stated thus: "The mind of the Beast 666 is so
constituted that it is compelled to conceive of an Universe
whose formula is None-Two."
I note that Laotze makes no attempt to announce a Tao which
is truly free from Teh. Teh is the necessary quality of Tao,
even though Tao, withdrawing Teh into itself, seems to ignore
the fact. The only pause I make is this, that mine own Holy
Guardian Angel, Aiwaz, whose crown is Thelema, whose robe
Agape, whose body the Lost Word that He declared to me, spake
in Book Seven and Twenty, saying: "Here is Nothing under
its three forms." Can there then be not only Nothing
Manifested, Teh or Two, a Nothing Unmanifested, Tao or Naught,
but also a Nothing Absolute?
But there is nothing incompatible with the terms of this
verse. The idea of "Because" makes everything dependent
on everything else, contrary to the conception of the Universe
which this Book has formulated. It is true that the concatenation
exists; but the chain does not fetter our limbs. The actions
and reactions of illusion are only appearances; we are not
affected. No series of images matters to the mirror. What
then is the danger of making 'a great miss?' We are immune
- that is the very essence of the doctrine. But error exists
in this sense, that we may imagine it; and when a lunatic
believes that Mankind is conspiring to poison him, it is
no consolation that others know his delusion for what it
is. Thus, we must 'understand these runes;" we must
become aware of our True Selves; if we abdicate our authority
as absolute individuals, we are liable to submit to Law,
to feel ourselves the puppets of Determinism, and to suffer
the agonies of impotence which have afflicted the thinker,
from Gautama to James Thomson.
Now then, "there is great danger in me" -- we
have seen what it is; but why should it lie in Hadit? Because
the process of self-analysis involves certain risks. The
profane are protected against those subtle spiritual perils
which lie in ambush for the priest. A Bushman never has a
nervous breakdown. (See Cap.I,v.31). When the Aspirant takes
his first Oath, the most trivial things turn into transcendental
terrors, tortures, and temptations. (Parts II and III of
Book 4 Elaborate this thesis at length.) We are so caked
with dirt that the germs of disease cannot reach us. If we
decide to wash, we must do it well; or we may have awakened
some sleeping dogs, and set them on defenceless areas. Initiation
stirs up the mud. It creates unstable equilibrium. It exposes
our elements to unfamiliar conditions. The France of Louis
XVI had to pass through the Terror before Napoleon could
teach it to find itself. Similarly, any error in reaching
the realization of Hadit may abandon the Aspirant to the
ambitions of every frenzied faction of his character, the
masterless dogs of the Augean kennel of his mind.
AL II,28: "Now a curse upon Because and his kin!"
The Old Comment
28. The great Curse pronounced by the Supernals against the
Inferiors who arise against them.
Our reasoning faculties are the toils of the Labyrinth within
which we are all caught. Cf. Liber LXV, v.59.
The New Comment
This is against these Intellectuals aforesaid. There are
no "standards of Right." Ethics is balderdash.
Each Star must go on its orbit. To hell with 'moral Principle;'
there is no such thing; that is a herd-delusion, and makes
men cattle. Do not listen to the rational explanation of
How Right It All Is, in the newspapers.
We may moreover consider "Because" as involving
the idea of causality, and therefore of duality. If cause
and effect are really inseparable, as they must be by definition,
it is mere clumsiness to regard them as separate; they are
two aspects of one single idea, conceived as consecutive
for the sake of (apparent) convenience, or for the general
purpose previously indicated of understanding and expressing
ourselves in finite terms.
Shallow indeed is the obvious objection to this passage
that the Book of the Law itself is full of phrases which
imply causality. Nobody denies that causality is a category
of the mind, a form of condition of thought which, if not
quite a theoretical necessity, is yet inevitable in practice.
The very idea of any relation between any two things appears
as causal. Even should we declare it to be causal, our minds
would still insist that causality itself was the effect of
some cause. Our daily experience hammers home this conviction;
and a man's mental excellence seems to be measurable almost
entirely in terms of the strength and depth of his appreciation
thereof as the soul of the structure of the Universe. It
is the spine of Science which has vertebrated human Knowledge
above the slimy mollusc whose principle was Faith.
We must not suppose for an instant that the Book of the
Law is opposed to reason. On the contrary, its own claim
to authority rests upon reason, and nothing else. It disdains
the arts of the orator. It makes reason the autocrat of the
mind. But that very fact emphasizes that the mind should
attend to its own business. It should not transgress its
limits. It should be a perfect machine, an apparatus for
representing the universe accurately and impartially to its
master. The Self, its Will, and its Apprehension, should
be utterly beyond it. Its individual peculiarities are its
imperfections. If we identify ourselves with our thoughts
or our bodily instincts, we are evidently pledged to partake
of their partiality. We make ourselves items of the interaction
of our own illusions.
In the following verses we shall find the practical application
of this theorem.
AL II,29: "May Because be accursed for ever!"
The New Comment
Distrust any explanation whatever. Disraeli said: Never ask
any one to dinner who has to be explained. All explanations
are intended to cover up lies, injustices, or shames. The
Truth is radiantly simple.
AL II,30: "If Will stops and cries Why, invoking Because,
then Will stops & does nought."
The New Comment
There is no 'reason' why a Star should continue in its orbit.
Let her rip! Every time the conscious acts, it interferes
with the Subconscious, which is Hadit. It is the voice
of Man, and not of a God. Any man who 'listens to reason'
ceases to be a revolutionary. The newspapers are Past Masters
in the Lodge of Sophistry Number 333. They can always prove
to you that it is necessary, and patriotic, and all the
rest of it, that you should suffer intolerable wrongs.
The Qabalists represent the mind as a complex of six elements,
whereas the Will is single, the direct expression as "The
Word" of the Self. The mind must inform the Understanding,
which then presents a simple idea to the Will. This issues
its orders |
