Energized Enthusiasm
A Note on Theurgy
I
I A O the supreme One of the Gnostics, the true God, is
the Lord of this work. Let us therefore invoke Him by that
name which the Companions of the royal Arch blaspheme to
aid us in the essay to declare the means which He has bestowed
upon us!
II
The divine consciousness which is reflected and refracted
in the works of Genius feeds upon a certain secretion, as
I believe. This secretion is analogous to semen, but not
identical with it. There are but few men and fewer women,
those women being invariably androgyne, who possess it at
any time in any quantity.
So closely is this secretion connected with the sexual economy
that it appears to me at times as if it might be a by-product
of that process which generates semen. That some form of
this doctrine has been generally accepted is shown in the
prohibitions of all religions. Sanctity has been assumed
to depend on chastity, and chastity has nearly always been
interpreted as abstinence. But I doubt whether the relation
is so simple as this would imply; for example, I find in
myself that manifestations of mental creative force always
concur with some abnormal condition of the physical powers
of generation. But it is not the case that long periods of
chastity, on the one hand, or excess of orgies, on the other,
are favourable to its manifestation or even to its formation.
I know myself,
and in me it is extremely strong; its results are astounding.
For example, I wrote "Tannhauser," complete
from conception to execution, in sixty-seven consecutive
hours. I was unconscious of the fall of nights and days,
even after stopping; nor was there any reaction of fatigue.
This work was written when I was twenty-four years old, immediately
on the completion of an orgie which would normally have tired
me out.
Often and often have I noticed that sexual satisfaction
so-called has left me dissatisfied and unfatigued, and let
loose the floods of verse which have disgraced my career.
Yet, on the contrary, a period of chastity has sometimes
fortified me for a great outburst. This is far from being
invariably the case. At the conclusion of the K 2 expedition,
after five months of chastity, I did no work whatever, barring
very few odd lyrics, for months afterwards.
I may mention the year 1911. At this time I was living,
in excellent good health, with the woman whom I loved. Her
health was, however, variable, and we were both constantly
worried. The weather was continuously fine and hot. For a
period of about three months I hardly missed a morning; always
on waking I burst out with a new idea which had to be written
down. The total energy of my being was very high. My weight
was 10 stone 8 lb., which had been my fighting weight when
I was ten years younger. We walked some twenty miles daily
through hilly forest. The actual amount of MSS. written at
this time is astounding; their variety is even more so; of
their excellence I will not speak.
Here is a rough list from memory; it is far from exhaustive:
(1) Some dozen
books of A.'. A.'. instruction, including liber Astarte,
and the Temple of Solomon the King for "Equinox
VII."
(2) Short Stories: The Woodcutter.
His Secret Sin.
(3) Plays: His Majesty's Fiddler
Elder Eel
Adonis . written straight off, one
The Ghouls. after the other
Mortadello.
(4) Poems: The Sevenfold Sacrament
A Birthday.
(5) Fundamentals of the Greek Qabalah (involving the collection
and analysis of several thousand words).
I think this phenomenon is unique in the history of literature.
I may further refer to my second journey to Algeria, where
my sexual life, though fairly full, had been unsatisfactory.
On quitting Biskra,
I was so full of ideas that I had to get off the train
at El-Kantara, where I wrote "The
Scorpion." Five or six poems were written on the way
to Paris; "The Ordeal of Ida Pendragon" during
my twenty-four hours' stay in Paris, and "Snowstorm" and "The
Electric Silence" immediately on my return to England.
To sum up, I can always trace a connection between my sexual
condition and the condition of artistic creation, which is
so close as to approach identity, and yet so loose that I
cannot predicate a single important proposition.
It is these considerations which give me pain when I am
reproached by the ignorant with wishing to produce genius
mechanically. I may fail, but my failure is a thousand times
greater than their utmost success.
I shall therefore base my remarks not so much on the observations
which I have myself made, and the experiments which I have
tried, as on the accepted classical methods of producing
that energized enthusiasm which is the lever that moves God.
III
The Greeks say that there are three methods of discharging
the genial secretion of which I have spoken. They thought
perhaps that their methods tended to secrete it, but this
I do not believe altogether, or without a qualm. For the
manifestation of force implies force, and this force must
have come from somewhere.
Easier I find
it to say "subconsciousness" and "secretion" than
to postulate an external reservoir, to extend my connotation
of "man" than to invent "God." However,
parsimony apart, I find it in my experience that it is useless
to flog a tired horse. There are times when I am absolutely
bereft of even one drop of this elixir. Nothing will restore
it, neither rest in bed, nor drugs, nor exercise. On the
other hand, sometimes when after a severe spell of work I
have been dropping with physical fatigue, perhaps sprawling
on the floor, too tired to move hand or foot, the occurrence
of an idea has restored me to perfect intensity of energy,
and the working out of the idea has actually got rid of the
aforesaid physical fatigue, although it involved a great
additional labour.
Exactly parallel
(nowhere meeting) is the case of mania. A madman may struggle
against six trained athletes for hours, and show no sign
of fatigue. Then he will suddenly collapse, but at a second's
notice from the irritable idea will resume the struggle
as fresh as ever. Until we discovered "unconscious
muscular action" and its effects, it was rational to
suppose such a man "possessed of a devil"; and
the difference between the madman and the genius is not in
the quantity but in the quality of their work. Genius is
organized, madness chaotic. Often the organization of genius
is on original lines, and ill-balanced and ignorant medicine-men
mistake it for disorder.
Time has shown
that Whistler and Gauguin "kept rules" as
well as the masters whom they were supposed to be upsetting.
IV
The Greeks say that there are three methods of discharging
the Lyden Jar of Genius. These three methods they assign
to three Gods.
These three Gods are Dionysus, Apollo, Aphrodite. In English:
wine, woman and song.
Now it would be a great mistake to imagine that the Greeks
were recommending a visit to a brothel. As well condemn the
High Mass at St. Peter's on the strength of having witnessed
a Protestant revival meeting. Disorder is always a parody
of order, because there is no archetypal disorder that it
might resemble. Owen Seaman can parody a poet; nobody can
parody Owen Seaman. A critic is a bundle of impressions;
there is no ego behind it. All photographs are essentially
alike; the works of all good painters essentially differ.
Some writers
suppose that in the ancient rites of Eleusis the High Priest
publicly copulated with the High Priestess. Were this so,
it would be no more "indecent" than
it is "blasphemous" for the priest to make bread
and wine into the body and blood of God. True, the Protestants
say that it is blasphemous; but a Protestant is one to whom
all things sacred are profane, whose mind being all filth
can see nothing in the sexual act but a crime or a jest,
whose only facial gestures are the sneer and the leer. Protestantism
is the excrement of human thought, and accordingly in Protestant
countries art, if it exist at all, only exists to revolt.
Let us return from this unsavoury allusion to our consideration
of the methods of the Greeks.
V
Agree then that it does not follow from the fact that wine,
woman and song make the sailor's tavern that these ingredients
must necessarily concoct a hell-broth.
There are some people so simple as to think that, when they
have proved the religious instinct to be a mere efflorescence
of the sex-instinct, they have destroyed religion.
We should rather
consider that the sailor's tavern gives him his only glimpse
of heaven, just as the destructive criticism of the phallicists
has only proved sex to be a sacrament. Consciousness, says
the materialist, axe in hand, is a function of the brain.
He has only re-formulated the old saying, "Your
bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost."!
Now sex is justly
hallowed in this sense, that it is the eternal fire of
the race. Huxley admitted that "some
of the lower animalculae are in a sense immortal," because
they go on reproducing eternally by fission, and however
often you divide "x" by 2 there is always something
left. But he never seems to have seen that mankind is immortal
in exactly the same sense, and goes on reproducing itself
with similar characteristics through the ages, changed by
circumstance indeed, but always identical in itself. But
the spiritual flower of this process is that at the moment
of discharge a physical ecstasy occurs, a spasm analogous
to the mental spasm which meditation gives. And further,
in the sacramental and ceremonial use of the sexual act,
the divine consciousness may be attained.
VI
The sexual act being then a sacrament, it remains to consider
in what respect this limits the employment of the organs.
First, it is obviously legitimate to employ them for their
natural physical purpose. But if it be allowable to use them
ceremonially for a religious purpose, we shall find the act
hedged about with many restrictions.
For in this case
the organs become holy. It matters little to mere propagation
that men should be vicious; the most debauched roue might
and almost certainly would beget more healthy children
than a semi-sexed prude. So the so-called "moral" restraints
are not based on reason; thus they are neglected.
But admit its religious function, and one may at once lay
down that the act must not be profaned. It must not be undertaken
lightly and foolishly without excuse.
It may be undertaken for the direct object of continuing
the race.
It may be undertaken in obedience to real passion; for passion,
as the name implies, is rather inspired by a force of divine
strength and beauty without the will of the individual, often
even against it.
It is the casual
or habitual --- what Christ called "idle" ---
use or rather abuse of these forces which constitutes their
profanation. It will further be obvious that, if the act
in itself is to be the sacrament in a religious ceremony,
this act must be accomplished solely for the love of God.
All personal considerations must be banished utterly. Just
as any priest can perform the miracle of transubstantiation,
so can any man, possessing the necessary qualifications,
perform this other miracle, whose nature must form the subject
of a subsequent discussion.
Personal aims
being destroyed, it is "a fortiori" necessary
to neglect social and other similar considerations.
Physical strength and beauty are necessary and desirable
for aesthetic reasons, the attention of the worshippers being
liable to distraction if the celebrants are ugly, deformed,
or incompetent.
I need hardly emphasize the necessity for the strictest
self-control and concentration on their part. As it would
be blasphemy to enjoy the gross taste of the wine of the
sacrament, so must the celebrant suppress even the minutest
manifestation of animal pleasure.
Of the qualifying tests there is no necessity to speak;
it is sufficient to say that the adepts have always known
how to secure efficiency.
Needless also to insist on a similar quality in the assistants;
the sexual excitement must be suppressed and transformed
into its religious equivalent.
VII
With these preliminaries settle in order to guard against
foreseen criticisms of those Protestants who, God having
made them a little lower than the Angels, have made themselves
a great deal lower than the beasts by their consistently
bestial interpretation of all things human and divine, we
may consider first the triune nature of these ancient methods
of energizing enthusiasm.
Music has two parts; tone or pitch, and rhythm. The latter
quality associates it with the dance, and that part of dancing
which is not rhythm is sex. Now that part of sex which is
not a form of the dance, animal movement, is intoxication
of the soul, which connects it with wine. Further identities
will suggest themselves to the student.
By the use of the three methods in one the whole being of
man may thus be stimulated.
The music will create a general harmony of the brain, leading
it in its own paths; the wine affords a general stimulus
of the animal nature; and the sex-excitement elevates the
moral nature of the man by its close analogy with the highest
ecstasy. It remains, however, always for him to make the
final transmutation. Unless he have the special secretion
which I have postulated, the result will be commonplace.
So consonant is this system with the nature of man that
it is exactly parodied and profaned not only in the sailor's
tavern, but in the society ball. Here, for the lowest natures
the result is drunkenness, disease and death; for the middle
natures a gradual blunting of the finer feelings; for the
higher, an exhilaration amounting at the best to the foundation
of a life-long love.
If these Society "rites" are
properly performed, there should be no exhaustion. After
a ball, one should feel the need of a long walk in the
young morning air. The weariness or boredom, the headache
or somnolence, are Nature's warnings.
VIII
Now the purpose of such a ball, the moral attitude on entering,
seems to me to be of supreme importance. If you go with the
idea of killing time, you are rather killing yourself. Baudelaire
speaks of the first period of love when the boy kisses the
trees of the wood, rather than kiss nothing. At the age of
thirty-six I found myself at Pompeii, passionately kissing
that great grave statue of a woman that stands in the avenue
of the tombs. Even now, as I wake in the morning, I sometimes
fall to kissing my own arms.
It is with such a feeling that one should go to a ball,
and with such a feeling intensified, purified and exalted,
that one should leave it. If this be so, how much more if
one go with the direct religious purpose burning in one's
whole being! Beethoven roaring at the sunrise is no strange
spectacle to me, who shout with joy and wonder, when I understand
(without which one cannot really be said ever to see) a blade
of grass. I fall upon my knees in speechless adoration at
the moon; I hide my eyes in holy awe from a good Van Gogh.
Imagine then a ball in which the music is the choir celestial,
the wine the wine of the Graal, or that of the Sabbath of
the Adepts, and one's partner the Infinite and Eternal One,
the True and Living God Most High!
Go even to a
common ball --- the Moulin de la Galette will serve even
the least of my magicians --- with your whole soul aflame
within you, and your whole will concentrated on these ...ansubstantiations,
and tell me what miracle takes place! It is the hate of,
the distaste for, life that sends one to the ball when
one is old; when one is young one is on springs until the
hour falls; but the love of God, which is the only true
love, diminishes not with age; it grows deeper and intenser
with every satisfaction. It seems as if in the noblest
men this secretion constantly increases --- which certainly
suggests an external reservoir --- so that age loses all
its bitterness. We find "Brother
Lawrence," Nicholas Herman of Lorraine, at the age of
eighty in continuous enjoyment of union with God. Buddha
at an equal age would run up and down the Eight High Trances
like an acrobat on a ladder; stories not too dissimilar are
told of Bishop Berkeley. Many persons have not attained union
at all until middle age, and then have rarely lost it.
It is true that genius in the ordinary sense of the word
has nearly always showed itself in the young. Perhaps we
should regard such cases as Nicholas Herman as cases of acquired
genius. Now I am certainly of opinion that genius can be
acquired, or, in the alternative, that it is an almost universal
possession. Its rarity may be attributed to the crushing
influence of a corrupted society. It is rare to meet a youth
without high ideals, generous thoughts, a sense of holiness,
of his own importance, which, being interpreted, is, of his
own identity with God. Three years in the world, and he is
a bank clerk or even a government official. Only those who
intuitively understand from early boyhood that they must
stand out, and who have the incredible courage and endurance
to do so in the face of all that tyranny, callousness, and
the scorn of inferiors can do; only these arrive at manhood
uncontaminated.
Every serious
or spiritual thought is made a jest; poets are thought "soft" and "cowardly," apparently
because they are the only boys with a will of their own and
courage to hold out against the whole school, boys and masters
in league as once were Pilate and Herod; honour is replaced
by expediency, holiness by hypocrisy. Even where we find
thoroughly good seed sprouting in favourable ground, too
often is there a frittering away of the forces. Facile encouragement
of a poet or painter is far worse for him than any amount
of opposition.
Here again the sex question (S.Q. so-called by Tolstoyans,
chastity-mongers, nut-fooders, and such who talk and think
of nothing else) intrudes its horrid head. I believe that
every boy is originally conscious of sex as sacred. But he
does not know what it is. With infinite diffidence he asks.
The master replies with holy horror; the boy with a low leer,
a furtive laugh, perhaps worse.
I am inclined
to agree with the Head Master of Eton that paederastic
passions among schoolboys "do no harm";
further, I think them the only redeeming feature of sexual
life at public schools.
The Hindoos are wiser. At the well-watched hour of puberty
the boy is prepared as for a sacrament; he is led to a duly
consecrated temple, and there by a wise and holy woman, skilled
in the art, and devoted to this end, he is ini??ated with
all solemnity into the mystery of life.
The act is thus
declared religious, sacred, impersonal, utterly apart from
amorism and eroticism and animalism and sentimentalism
and all the other vilenesses that Protestantism has made
of it. The Catholic Church did, I believe, to some extent
preserve the Pagan tradition. Marriage is a sacrament.<<Of
course there has been a school of devilish ananders that
has held the act in itself to be "Wicked." Of such
blasphemers of Nature let no further word be said.>> But
in the attempt to deprive the act of all accretions which
would profane it, the Fathers of the Church added in spite
of themselves other accretions which profaned it more. They
tied it to property and inheritance. They wished it to serve
both God and Mammon.
Rightly restraining the priest, who should employ his whole
energy in the miracle of the Mass, they found their counsel
a counsel of perfection. The magical tradition was in part
lost; the priest could not do what was expected of him, and
the unexpended portion of his energy turned sour. Hence the
thoughts of priests, like the thoughts of modern faddists,
revolved eternally around the S.Q.
A special and Secret Mass, a Mass of the Holy Ghost, a Mass
of the Mystery of the Incarnation, to be performed at stated
intervals, might have saved both monks and nuns, and given
the Church eternal dominion of the world.
IX
To return. The rarity of genius is in great part due to
the destruction of its young. Even as in physical life that
is a favoured plant one of whose thousand seeds ever shoots
forth a blade, so do conditions kill all but the strongest
sons of genius. But just as rabbits increased apace in Australia,
where even a missionary has been known to beget ninety children
in two years, so shall we be able to breed genius if we can
find the conditions which hamper it, and remove them.
The obvious practical step to take is to restore the rites
of Bacchus, Aphrodite and Apollo to their proper place. They
should not be open to every one, and manhood should be the
reward of ordeal and initiation.
The physical tests should be severe, and weaklings should
be killed out rather than artificially preserved. The same
remark applies to intellectual tests. But such tests should
be as wide as possible. I was an absolute duffer at school
in all forms of athletics and games, because I despised them.
I held, and still hold, numerous mountaineering world's records.
Similarly, examinations fail to test intelligence. Cecil
Rhodes refused to employ any man with a University degree.
That such degrees lead to honour in England is a sign of
England's decay, though even in England they are usually
the stepping-stones to clerical idleness or pedagogic slavery.
Such is a dotted outline of the picture that I wish to draw.
If the power to possess property depended on a man's competence,
and his perception of real values, a new aristocracy would
at once be created, and the deadly fact that social consideration
varies with the power of purchasing champagne would cease
to be a fact. Our pluto-hetairo-politicocracy would fall
in a day.
But I am only too well aware that such a picture is not
likely to be painted. We can then only work patiently and
in secret. We must select suitable material and train it
in utmost reverence to these three master-methods, or aiding
the soul in its genial orgasm.
X
This reverent attitude is of an importance which I cannot
over-rate. Normal people find normal relief from any general
or special excitement in the sexual act.
Commander Marston, R.N., whose experiments in the effect
of the tom-tom on the married Englishwoman are classical
and conclusive, has admirably described how the vague unrest
which she at first shows gradually assumes the sexual form,
and culminates, if allowed to do so, in shameless masturbation
or indecent advances. But this is a natural corollary of
the proposition that married Englishwomen are usually unacquainted
with sexual satisfaction.
Their desires are constantly stimulated by brutal and ignorant
husbands, and never gratified. This fact again accounts for
the amazing prevalence of Sapphism in London Society.
The Hindus warn their pupils against the dangers of breathing
exercises. Indeed the slightest laxness in moral or physical
tissues may cause the energy accumulated by the practice
to discharge itself by involuntary emission. I have known
this happen in my own experience.
It is then of
the utmost importance to realize that the relief of the
tension is to be found in what the Hebrews and the Greeks
called prophesying, and which is better when organized
into art. The disorderly discharge is mere waste, a wilderness
of howlings; the orderly discharge is a "Prometheus
unbound," or a L'age d'airain," according to the
special aptitudes of the enthused person. But it must be
remembered that special aptitudes are very easy to acquire
if the driving force of enthusiasm be great. If you cannot
keep the rules of others, you make rules of your own. One
set turns out in the long run to be just as good as another.
Henry Rousseau,
the duanier, was laughed at all his life. I laughed as
heartily as the rest; though, almost despite myself, I
kept on saying (as the phrase goes) "that
I felt something; couldn't say what."
The moment it
occurred to somebody to put up all his paintings in one
room by themselves, it was instantly apparent that his "naivete" was
the simplicity of a Master. Let no one then imagine that
I fail to perceive or underestimate the dangers of employing
these methods. The occurrence even of so simple a matter
as fatigue might change a LasMeninas into a stupid sexual
crisis.
It will be necessary for most Englishmen to emulate the
self-control of the Arabs and Hindus, whose ideal is to deflower
the greatest possible number of virgins --- eighty is considered
a fairly good performance --- without completing the act.
It is, indeed, of the first importance for the celebrant
in any phallic rite to be able to complete the act without
even once allowing a sexual or sensual thought to invade
his mind. The mind must be as absolutely detached from one's
own body as it is from another person's.
XI
Of musical instruments few are suitable. The human voice
is the best, and the only one which can be usefully employed
in chorus. Anything like an orchestra implies infinite rehearsal,
and introduces an atmosphere of artificiality. The organ
is a worthy solo instrument, and is an orchestra in itself,
while its tone and associations favour the religious idea.
The violin is the most useful of all, for its every mood
expresses the hunger for the infinite, and yet it is so mobile
that it has a greater emotional range than any of its competitors.
Accompaniment must be dispensed with, unless a harpist be
available.
The harmonium is a horrible instrument, if only because
of its associations; and the piano is like unto it, although,
if unseen and played by a Paderewski, it would serve. The
trumpet and the bell are excellent, to startle, at the crisis
of a ceremony.
Hot, drubbing, passionate, in a different class of ceremony,
a class more intense and direct, but on the whole less exalted,
the tom-tom stands alone. It combines well with the practice
of mantra, and is the best accompaniment for any sacred dance.
XII
Of sacred dances the most practical for a gathering is the
seated dance. One sits cross-legged on the floor, and sways
to and fro from the hips in time with the mantra. A solo
or duet of dancers as a spectacle rather distracts from this
exercise. I would suggest a very small and very brilliant
light on the floor in the middle of the room. Such a room
is best floored with mosaic marble; an ordinary Freemason's
Lodge carpet is not a bad thing.
The eyes, if they see anything at all, see then only the
rhythmical or mechanical squares leading in perspective to
the simple unwinking light.
The swinging of the body with the mantra (which has a habit
of rising and falling as if of its own accord in a very weird
way) becomes more accentuated; ultimately a curiously spasmodic
stage occurs, and then the consciousness flickers and goes
out; perhaps breaks through into the divine consciousness,
perhaps is merely recalled to itself by some variable in
external impression. The above is a very simple description
of a very simple and earnest form of ceremony, based entirely
upon rhythm.
It is very easy to prepare, and its results are usually
very encouraging for the beginner.
XIII
Wine being a mocker and strong drink raging, its use is
more likely to lead to trouble than mere music.
One essential difficulty is dosage. One needs exactly enough;
and, as Blake points out, one can only tell what is enough
by taking too much. For each man the dose varies enormously;
so does it for the same man at different times.
The ceremonial escape from this is to have a noiseless attendant
to bear the bowl of libation, and present it to each in turn,
at frequent intervals.
Small doses should be drunk, and the bowl passed on, taken
as the worshipper deems advisable. Yet the cup-bearer should
be an initiate, and use his own discretion before presenting
the bowl. The slightest sign that intoxication is mastering
the man should be a sign to him to pass that man. This practice
can be easily fitted to the ceremony previously described.
If desired, instead of wine, the elixir introduced by me
to Europe may be employed. But its results, if used in this
way, have not as yet been thoroughly studied. It is my immediate
purpose to repair this neglect.
XIV
The sexual excitement, which must complete the harmony of
method, offers a more difficult problem.
It is exceptionally desirable that the actual bodily movements
involved should be decorous in the highest sense, and many
people are so ill-trained that they will be unable to regard
such a ceremony with any but critical or lascivious eyes;
either would be fatal to all the good already done. It is
presumably better to wait until all present are greatly exalted
before risking a profanation.
It is not desirable, in my opinion, that the ordinary worshippers
should celebrate in public. The sacrifice should be single.
Whether or no ...
XV
Thus far had
I written when the distinguished poet, whose conversation
with me upon the Mysteries had incited me to jot down these
few rough notes, knocked at my door. I told him that I
was at work on the ideas suggested by him, and that ---
well, I was rather stuck. He asked permission to glance
at the MS. (for he reads English fluently, though speaking
but a few words), and having done so, kindled and said: "If you come with me now, we will finish your
essay." Glad enough of any excuse to stop working, the
more plausible the better, I hastened to take down my coat
and hat. "By the way," he remarked in the automobile, "I
take it that you do not mind giving me the Word of Rose Croix." Surprised,
I exchanged the secrets of I.N.R.I. with him. "And now,
very excellent and perfect Prince," he said, "what
follows is under this seal." And he gave me the most
solemn of all Masonic tokens. "You are about," said
he, "to compare your ideal with our real." He
touched a bell. The automobile stopped, and we got out. He
dismissed the chauffeur. "Come," he said, "we
have a brisk half-mile." We walked through thick woods
to an old house, where we were greeted in silence by a gentleman
who, though in court dress, wore a very "practicable" sword.
On satisfying him, we were passed through a corridor to an
anteroom, where another armed guardian awaited us. He, after
a further examination, proceeded to offer me a court dress,
the insignia of a Sovereign Prince of Rose Croix, and a garter
and mantle, the former of green silk, the latter of green
velvet, and lined with cerise silk. "It is a low mass," whispered
the guardian. In this anteroom were three or four others,
both ladies and gentlemen, busily robing.
In a third room we found a procession formed, and joined
it. There were twenty-six of us in all. Passing a final guardian
we reached the chapel itself, at whose entrance stood a young
man and a young woman, both dressed in simple robes of white
silk embroidered with gold, red and blue. The former bore
a torch of resinous wood, the latter sprayed us as we passed
with attar of roses from a cup.
The room in which we now were had at one time been a chapel;
so much its shape declared. But the high altar was covered
with a cloth that displayed the Rose and Cross, while above
it were ranged seven candelabra, each of seven branches.
The stalls had been retained; and at each knight's hand
burned a taper of rose-coloured wax, and a bouquet of roses
was before him.
In the centre
of the nave was a great cross --- a "calvary
cross of ten squares," measuring, say, six feet by five
--- painted in red upon a white board, at whose edge were
rings through which passed gilt staves. At each corner was
a banner, bearing lion, bull, eagle and man, and from the
top of their staves sprang a canopy of blue, wherein were
figured in gold the twelve emblems of the Zodiac.
Knights and Dames being installed, suddenly a bell tinkled
in the architrave. Instantly all rose. The doors opened at
a trumpet peal from without, and a herald advanced, followed
by the High Priest and Priestess.
The High Priest was a man of nearly sixty years, if I may
judge by the white beard; but he walked with the springy
yet assured step of the thirties. The High Priestess, a proud,
tall sombre woman of perhaps thirty summers, walked by his
side, their hands raised and touching as in the minuet. Their
trains were borne by the two youths who had admitted us.
All this while an unseen organ played an Introit.
This ceased as they took their places at the altar. They
faced West, waiting.
On the closing of the doors the armed guard, who was clothed
in a scarlet robe instead of green, drew his sword, and went
up and down the aisle, chanting exorcisms and swinging the
great sword. All present drew their swords and faced outward,
holding the points in front of them. This part of the ceremony
appeared interminable.
When it was over the girl and boy reappeared; bearing, the
one a bowl, the other a censer. Singing some litany or other,
apparently in Greek, though I could not catch the words,
they purified and consecrated the chapel.
Now the High Priest and High Priestess began a litany in
rhythmic lines of equal length. At each third response they
touched hands in a peculiar manner; at each seventh they
kissed. The twenty-first was a complete embrace. The bell
tinkled in the architrave; and they parted. The High Priest
then took from the altar a flask curiously shaped to imitate
a phallus. The High Priestess knelt and presented a boat-shaped
cup of gold. He knelt opposite her, and did not pour from
the flask.
Now the Knights and Dames began a long litany; first a Dame
in treble, then a Knight in bass, then a response in chorus
of all present with the organ.
This Chorus was:
EVOE HO, IACCHE!
EPELTHON, EPELTHON, EVOE, IAO! Again and again it rose
and fell. Towards its close, whether by "stage
effect" or no I could not swear, the light over the
altar grew rosy, then purple. The High Priest sharply and
suddenly threw up his hand; instant silence.
He now poured out the wine from the flask. The High Priestess
gave it to the girl attendant, who bore it to all present.
This was no ordinary wine. It has been said of vodki that
it looks like water and tastes like fire. With this wine
the reverse is the case. It was of a rich fiery gold in which
flames of light danced and shook, but its taste was limpid
and pure like fresh spring water. No sooner had I drunk of
it, however, that I began to tremble. It was a most astonishing
sensation; I can imagine a man feel thus as he awaits his
executioner, when he has passed through fear, and is all
excitement.
I looked down my stall, and saw that each was similarly
affected. During the libation the High Priestess sang a hymn,
again in Greek. This time I recognized the words; they were
those of an ancient Ode to Aphrodite.
The boy attendant now descended to the red cross, stooped
and kissed it; then he danced upon it in such a way that
he seemed to be tracing the patterns of a marvellous rose
of gold, for the percussion caused a shower of bright dust
to fall from the canopy. Meanwhile the litany (different
words, but the same chorus) began again. This time it was
a duet between the High Priest and Priestess. At each chorus
Knights and Dames bowed low. The girl moved round continuously,
and the bowl passed. This ended in the exhaustion of the
boy, who fell fainting on the cross. The girl immediately
took the bowl and put it to his lips. Then she raised him,
and, with the assistance of the Guardian of the Sanctuary,
led him out of the chapel.
The bell again tinkled in the architrave.
The herald blew a fanfare.
The High Priest and High Priestess moved stately to each
other and embraced, in the act unloosing the heavy golden
robes which they wore. These fell, twin lakes of gold. I
now saw her dressed in a garment of white watered silk, lined
throughout (as it appeared later) with ermine.
The High Priest's
vestment was an elaborate embroidery of every colour, harmonized
by exquisite yet robust art. He wore also a breastplate
corresponding to the canopy; a sculptured "beast" at
each corner in gold, while the twelve signs of the Zodiac
were symbolized by the stones of the breastplace.
The bell tinkled yet again, and the herald again sounded
his trumpet. The celebrants moved hand in hand down the nave
while the organ thundered forth its solemn harmonies.
All the knights and Dames rose and gave the secret sign
of the Rose Croix.
It was at this part of the ceremony that things began to
happen to me.
I became suddenly
aware that my body had lost both weight and tactile sensibility.
My consciousness seemed to be situated no longer in my
body. I "mistook myself," if I
may use the phrase, for one of the stars in the canopy.
In this way I missed seeing the celebrants actually approach
the cross. The bell tinkled again; I came back to myself,
and then I saw that the High Priestess, standing at the foot
of the cross, had thrown her robe over it, so that the cross
was no longer visible. There was only a board covered with
ermine. She was now naked but for her coloured and jewelled
head-dress and the heavy torque of gold about her neck, and
the armlets and anklets that matched it. She began to sing
in a soft strange tongue, so low and smoothly that in my
partial bewilderment I could not hear all; but I caught a
few words, Io Paian! Io Pan! and a phrase in which the words
Iao Sabao ended emphatically a sentence in which I caught
the words Eros, Thelema and Sebazo.
While she did this she unloosed the breastplate and gave
it to the girl attendant. The robe followed; I saw that they
were naked and unashamed. For the first time there was absolute
silence. Now, from an hundred jets surrounding the board
poured forth a perfumed purple smoke. The world was wrapt
in a fond gauze of mist, sacred as the clouds upon the mountains.
Then at a signal given by the High Priest, the bell tinkled
once more. The celebrants stretched out their arms in the
form of a cross, interlacing their fingers. Slowly they revolved
through three circles and a half. She then laid him down
upon the cross, and took her own appointed place.
The organ now again rolled forth its solemn music.
I was lost to everything. Only this I saw, that the celebrants
made no expected motion. The movements were extremely small
and yet extremely strong.
This must have continued for a great length of time. To
me it seemed as if eternity itself could not contain the
variety and depth of my experiences. Tongue nor pen could
record them; and yet I am fain to attempt the impossible.
1. I was, certainly and undoubtedly, the star in the canopy.
This star was an incomprehensibly enormous world of pure
flame.
2. I suddenly realized that the star was of no size whatever.
It was not that the star shrank, but that it (= I) became
suddenly conscious of infinite space.
3. An explosion
took place. I was in consequence a point of light, infinitely
small, yet infinitely bright, and this point was "without
position."
4. Consequently
this point was ubiquitous, and there was a feeling of infinite
bewilderment, blinded after a very long time by a gush
of infinite rapture (I use the word "blinded" as
if under constraint; I should have preferred to use the words "blotted
out" or "overwhelmed" or "illuminated").
5. This infinite fullness --- I have not described it as
such, but it was that --- was suddenly changed into a feeling
of infinite emptiness, which became conscious as a yearning.
6. These two feelings began to alternate, always with suddenness,
and without in any way overlapping, with great rapidity.
7. This alternation must have occurred fifty times --- I
had rather have said an hundred.
8. The two feelings suddenly became one. Again the word
explosion is the only one that gives any idea of it.
9. I now seemed
to be conscious of everything at once, that it was at the
same time "one" and "many." I
say "at once," that is, I was not successively
all things, but instantaneously.
10. This being, if I may call it being, seemed to drop into
an infinite abyss of Nothing.
11. While this "falling" lasted, the bell suddenly
tinkled three times. I instantly became my normal self, yet
with a constant awareness, which has never left me to this
hour, that the truth of the matter is not this normal "I" but "That" which
is still dropping into Nothing. I am assured by those who
know that I may be able to take up the thread if I attend
another ceremony.
The tinkle died away. The girl attendant ran quickly forward
and folded the ermine over the celebrants. The herald blew
a fanfare, and the Knights and Dames left their stalls. Advancing
to the board, we took hold of the gilded carrying poles,
and followed the herald in procession out of the chapel,
bearing the litter to a small side-chapel leading out of
the middle anteroom, where we left it, the guard closing
the doors.
In silence we disrobed, and left the house. About a mile
through the woods we found my friend's automobile waiting.
I asked him, if that was a low mass, might I not be permitted
to witness a High Mass?
"Perhaps," he answered with a curious smile, "if
all they tell of you is true."
In the meanwhile he permitted me to describe the ceremony
and its results as faithfully as I was able, charging me
only to give no indication of the city near which it took
place.
I am willing to indicate to initiates of the Rose Croix
degree of Masonry under proper charter from the genuine authorities
(for there are spurious Masons working under a forged charter)
the address of a person willing to consider their fitness
to affiliate to a Chapter practising similar rites.
XVI
I consider it supererogatory to continue my essay on the
Mysteries and my analysis of "Energized Enthusiasm."
| Authors
Details: Aleister Crowley |
|
