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The Cry of the
18th Aethyr,
Which is Called ZEN1
A Voice comes before any vision: Accursed are they who
enter herein if they have nails, for they shall be
pierced therewith; or if they have thorns, for they shall
be crowned withal; or if they have whips, for with whips
they shall be scourged: or if they bear wine, for their
wine shall be turned to bitterness; or if they have a
spear, for with a spear shall they be pierced unto the
heart. And the nails are desires, of which there are
three; the desire of light, the desire of life, the
desire of love2.
(And the thorns are thoughts, and the whips are
regrets, and the wine is ease, or perhaps unsteadiness,
especially in ecstasy, and the spear is attachment.)
And now there dawns the scene of the Crucifixion; but
the Crucified One is an enormous bat, and for the two
thieves are two little children. It is night, and the
night is full of hideous things and howlings3.
And an angel cometh forth, and saith: Be wary, for if
thou change so much as the style of a letter, the holy
word is blasphemed4.
But enter into the mountain of the Caverns, for that this
(how much more then that Calvary which mocks it, as his
ape mocks Thoth?) is but the empty shell of the mystery
of ZEN. Verily, I say unto thee, many are the adepts that
have looked upon the back parts of my father, and cried,
"our eyes fail before the glory of thy countenance5."
And with that he gives the sign of the rending of the
veil, and tears down the vision. And behold! whirling
columns of fiery light, seventy- two6. Upon them is
supported a mountain of pure crystal. The mountain is a
cone, the angle of the apex being sixty degrees7.
And within the crystal is a pyramid of ruby8, like unto the
Great Pyramid of Gizeh.
I am entered in by the little door thereof, and I am
come into the chamber of the king, which is fashioned
like unto the vault of the adepts, or rather it is
fitting to say that the vault of the adepts is a vile
imitation of it. For there are four sides to the chamber,
which with the roof and the floor and the chamber itself
makes seven9.
So also is the pastos seven10,
for that which is within is like unto that which is
without. And there is no furniture, and there are no
symbols.
Light streams from every side upon the pastos. This
light is that blue of Horus which we know, but being
refined it is brilliance. For the light of Horus only
appears blue because of the imperfection of our eyes11.
But though the light pours from the pastos, yet the
pastos remains perfectly dark, so that it is invisible.
It hath no form: only, at a certain point in the chamber,
the light is beaten back12.
I lie prostate upon the ground before this mystery.
Its splendour is impossible to describe. I can only say
that its splendour is so great that my heart stops with
the terror and the wonder and the rapture of it13.
I am almost mad. A million insane images chase each other
through my brain...14
A voice comes: (it is my own voice -- I did not know it).
"When thou shalt know me, O thou empty God, my
little flame shall utterly expire in thy great N.O.X.15"
There is no answer16.
... (20 minutes. O.V.) ...
And now, after so long a while, the Angel17 lifts me and
takes me from the room18,
and sets me in a little chamber19 where is another
Angel like a fair youth in shining garments, who makes me
partake of the sacraments; bread, that is labour; and
fire, that is wit; and a rose, that is sin; and wine,
that is death20.
And all about us is a great company of angels in
many-coloured robes, rose and spring-green, and sky-blue,
and pale gold, and silver, and lilac, solemnly chanting
without words. It is music wonderful beyond all that can
be thought.
And now we go out of the chamber; on the right is a
pylon, and the right figure is Isis, and the left figure
Nephthys, and they are folding their wings over, and
supporting Ra21.
I wanted to go back to the King's Chamber22. The Angel pushed
me away, saying: "Thou shalt see these visions from
afar off, but thou shalt not partake of them save in the
manner prescribed. For if thou change so much as the
style of a letter, the holy word is blasphemed.23"
And this is the manner prescribed:
Let there be a room furnished as for the ritual of
passing through Tuat24.
And let the aspirant be clad in the robes of, and let him
bear the insignia of his grade. And at the least he shall
be a neophyte25.
Three days and three nights shall he have been in the
tomb, vigilant and fasting, for he shall sleep no longer
than three hours at any one time, and he shall drink pure
water, and eat little sweet cakes consecrated unto the
moon, and fruits, and the eggs of the duck, or of the
goose, or of the plover. And he shall be shut in, so that
no man may break in upon his meditation. But in the last
twelve hours he shall neither eat nor sleep.
Then shall he break his fast, eating rich food, and
drinking sweet wines, and wines that foam26; and he shall
banish the elements and the planets and the signs and the
sephiroth27;
and then shall he take the holy table that he hath made
for his altar; and he shall take the call of the Aethyr
of which he will partake, which he hath written in the
angelic character, or in the character of the holy
alphabet that is revealed in Pop, upon a fair sheet of
virgin vellum; and therewith shall he conjure the Aethyr,
chanting the call. And in the lamp that is hung above the
altar shall he burn the call that he hath written28.
Then shall he kneel29
before the holy table, and it shall be given him to
partake of the mystery of the Aethyr.
And concerning the ink with which he shall write; for
the first Aethyr let it be gold, for the second scarlet,
for the third violet, for the fourth emerald, for the
fifth silver, for the sixth sapphire, for the seventh
orange, for the eighth indigo, for the ninth gray, for
the tenth black, for the eleventh maroon, for the twelfth
russet, for the thirteenth green-gray, for the fourteenth
amber, for the fifteenth olive, for the sixteenth pale
blue, for the seventeenth crimson, for the eighteenth
bright yellow, for the nineteenth crimson adorned with
silver, for the twentieth mauve, for the twenty-first
pale green, for the twenty-second rose-madder, for the
twenty-third violet cobalt, for the twenty-fourth
beetle-brown, blue-brown colour, for the twenty-fifth a
cold dark gray, for the twenty- sixth white flecked with
red, blue, and yellow; the edges of the letters shall be
green, for the twenty-seventh angry clouds of ruddy
brown, for the twenty-eighth indigo, for the twenty-ninth
bluish-green, for the thirtieth mixed colours30.
This shall be the form to be used by him who would
partake of the mystery of any Aethyr. And let him not
change so much as the style of a letter, lest the holy
word be blasphemed.
And let him beware, after he hath been permitted to
partake of this mystery, that he await the completion of
the 91st hour of his retirement, before he open the door
of the place of his retirement; lest he contaminate his
glory with uncleanness, and lest they that behold him be
smitten by his glory unto death31.
For this is a holy mystery, and he that did first
attain to reveal the alphabet thereof32, perceived not
one ten-thousandth part of the fringe that is upon its
vesture.
Come away! for the clouds are gathered together, and
the Aire heaveth like the womb of a woman in travail.
Come away! lest he loose the lightnings from his hand,
and unleash his hounds of thunder. Come away! For the
voice of the Aethyr is accomplished. Come away! For the
seal of His loving-kindness is made sure. And let there
be praise and blessing unspeakable unto him that sitteth
upon the Holy Throne, for he casteth down mercies as a
spendthrift that scattereth gold. And he hath shut up
judgment and hidden it away as a miser that hoardeth
coins of little worth33.
All this while the Angel hath been pushing me
backwards, and now he is turned into a golden cross with
a rose at its heart, and that is the red cross wherein is
set the golden shewstone.
Bou-Sada.
December 1, 1909. 2:30 - 4:10 p.m.
- ZEN = {Leo}
{Virgo} {Scorpio} = {HEB:Tet}{HEB:Yod}{HEB:Nun} =
69. 69 = {HEB:Samekh} {HEB:Vau} {HEB:Bet}
{HEB:Aleph}, a manger, stable, enclosure. This
Aethyr describes the Place of the Preliminary
Ceremony of the Initiation of the Master of the
Temple. The Candidate is fortified for the Ordeal
of Intimate Communion with his Holy Guardian
Angel, who comes upon him unaware, and prepares
him interiorly below any normal sphere of
consciousness.
- The Exempt Adept
must be freed from all attachment.
- The aspirant is
reminded by this vision of the horror which is
always ready to take the place of a True Magical
Operation. Coruptio optimi pessima.
- This warning is
given directly.
- It is repeated in
detail.
- The number of the
letters of Shemhamphorash, the "Divided
Name", i.e., Tetragrammaton in detail. Also,
72 = {HEB:Bet}{HEB:Ayin}, the "Secret
Nature" of Atziluth, the Archetypal World of
Pure Reality.
- The cone is a
figure of Iacchus, Lord of the Highest Ecstasy.
It is the Phallus. Its mathematical implications
are many and important. In particular, its
relations with the Great Pyramid of Cheops yield
remarkable correspondences.
- {GRK:pi}{GRK:upsilon}{GRK:rho}{GRK:alpha}{GRK:mu}{GRK:iota}{GRK:sigma}=
831
- Similarly, the
Hexagram is attributed to the Seven Planets; for
the Centre contains {Sun}.
- Compare this
whole geometrical symbolism with that given in
the Ritual of Adeptus Minor.
- Compare, in
external nature, the appearance of the blue sky.
- This very strange
phenomenon is perhaps quite inadequately
described. It is a general condition of most
Spiritual Experience that the familiar laws of
Nature do not obtain in their accustomed forms.
It is only when Experience enables one to observe
them with detachment that they are seen to be as
uniform, simple and exact as those of normal
physics.
- Compare with this
unlighted, light-radiating Pastos, the Boundless
Cube in the Vision of Pure Love: "In the
morning I woke early, before 7, in an absolutely
renewed physical condition. I had the clean fresh
feeling of a healthy boyhood, and was alert and
active as a kitten --- post talem mortem!
Mentally, I woke into Pure Love. This
was symbolized as a cube* of blue-white light
like a diamond of the best quality. It was lucid,
translucent, self-luminous, and yet not radiating
forth. I suppose because there was nothing else
in the Cosmos." *. I say "a cube",
yet its most salient property was that it was
without boundaries. Experience of similar trances
is necessary for the understanding of this
statement, which is a perfectly proper expression
of a a perfectly observed fact, despite its
intellectual self-contradiction. This withdrawal
from sense of the Pastos, which is the Inmost and
most sacred Self of the Aspirant, is the
surrender of "all that he has and all that
he is" on entering the Abyss.
- There is a
fleeting Image of the Horror of the Abyss, as a
mountaineer, leaping a Bergschrund, obtains a
momentary glimpse of the Terrors beneath his airy
Path. Cf. 10th Aire for these images of madness.
- This quotation is
from Liber VII I, v. 40. (This Book
describes in detail the whole Attainment of the
Grade of Magister Templi. It had been given to
the Seer, years previously; but he had not
understood it, even with his Neshamah, as a
coherent entity. Nor does he even yet (An XXI,
{Sun} in {Cancer}) understand it with his Rauch.
Incidentally the full meaning of this Book 418,
as a connected account of his Initiation, is only
now becoming clear to him in the process of
writing this Commentary upon it. For N.O.X., see
Note above, 20th Aire. Observe that although the
Exempt Adept, or the Babe of the Abyss, is
completely baffled by the circumstances, and in
no wise understands the situation, his Chiah, the
Magician in him, acts with sublime confidence and
correctness.
- The quotation,
accepting annihilation, instantly destroys the
myriad of insane images which hastened to occupy
the vacuum created by the leap of the Exempt
Adept into the Abyss. Had he faltered, he would
have become --- against his will --- a
"Black Brother". But this being
involuntary, he would not have attempted to
maintain his coherence, as the Black Brothers do.
He would therefore, have been destroyed at once;
that is, to outward appearance he would have
become a demented babbler. Spiritists present
this phenomenon, on a much lower plane, and in a
diluted form; though, with them as with the
average Theosophist, there is usually a certain
degree of obsession by pet phantoms --- a
"Chinese Guide," or "Koot
Hoomi," or what not --- to lend a species of
semi-organized structure to the legions of
disconnected ideas that throng their
disintegrated gray matter.
- (No Angel has
been mentioned. The Seer was lost to being.) In
this preliminary --- and so to say, symbolic ---
crossing of the Abyss, His Holy Guardian Angel
comes to the rescue of the Aspirant. Contrast the
unspeakable Terror of the actual Crossing, when
that Angel Himself abandons the Seer (see 11th
Aire, the last paragraph.) Exactly how the Angel
dealt with the Seer in this 20 minutes of earthly
time is impossible to say; for he has no memory
soever --- nor had he even at the time --- of
what took place. We may, however, deduce from the
fact that the Communion took place in a sphere
beyond even Neschamah. It may well have been a
Quintessence of Union sufficiently intimate to
have identified the Seer with his Angel so
perfectly as to have given him the right to make
the passage fully, in every sense; and to have
ensured his safety on the way. For the Angel
cometh forth from above the Abyss, and dwelleth
of right in the Bosom of the Great Mother. But
the Angel deals not with the little pile of dust
in the City of the Pyramids, (see 14th Aethyr) but with the Star that is cast forth
to give light to the Earth.
- This pyramid,
where is the Pastos, is the Chamber of
Annihilation. The Pastos contains the Essence of
the Aspirant, and is in a Chamber containing the
Essence of the Universe. This is all ready to be
burnt up in the Energy of Aspiration to the
Creative Annihilation, the Ruby Pyramid of
Phallus. Finally, this Pyramid is within a Cone,
a figure combining the straight line and the
circle (Rose and Cross in their purest form)
representing the new Universe into which the Old
is to be transmuted. It is established, like all
types of Universe, upon the Four Elements
(divided into 72) which are the conditions of
manifested Existence. (The elements are not only
"material"; they include categories
like "Time", "Space" and
"Causality".)
- This is the
Birth-Chamber, where the Magister Templi awakes
from the Oblivion of the Abyss.
- These sacraments
furnish him with the material of his new Life.
Bread ({Spirit}) is labour, the nourishment of
his being. Fire is the perception of clear
understanding (Neschamah). The Rose ({Air}) is
Sin, the restriction which prevents him from
being dissolved in pure light (Kether) for his
Oath as a Master of the Temple is to deny himself
the enjoyment of that privilege, for the sake of
the Love that he bears to Mankind; wherefore is
that Sin fragrant with the sent of love. Finally,
Wine ({Water}) is Death, the Ecstasy of
transmuting all things into Joy by the Sacrament
of Creative Love.
- Isis, Nature, and
Nephthys, Perfection, preside over the Arising of
the New Star. The Magister Templi is a little
pyramid of dust in the City of the Pyramids (see
14th Aire) awaiting the Fire that shall burn him
up to a white Ash (see 6th Aire). But the
original combination of Sankharas (tendencies ---
the elements of the Character of the Man) is void
of the Ego. Ahamkara (the ego-making faculty) has
been assimilated. The Sankharas are, however,
still linked by the Karma of the Adept; for they
had to be most strongly knit by him that he might
be able to concentrate their whole Energies upon
the Great Work of abandoning in a single gesture
"all that he has and all that he is".
They accordingly hold together: His Will has been
accomplished, and he is free from them; but they
depend upon the Elements which compose that true
Will, which, since he has succeeded, can
only be that Sublime Passion for Mankind, to help
it to "Conquer Space, and lastly climb the
walls of Time, and by the Golden Path the great
have trod, Reach up to God." A phenomenon of
this nature thus appears "as a morning star,
or as an evening star, to give light to them that
sit in darkness, and in the shadow of
death". This is then the man himself, save
that his separate individuality is no longer
present; it is replaced by this single passion to
rescue mankind.
- The Seer's first
impulse was to proceed with the Work on which he
had been engaged when the Dissolution of his
Being took place.
- As stated in a
previous Aire, these higher visions are not to be
obtained by the methods applicable to less
exalted spheres.
- See the Book of
the Dead, as adopted for modern use by the
Authorities of the G{.·.} D{.·.}
- He must be a
neophyte to have access to the Ritual of Passing
Through the Tuat.
- See Liber AL,
I. v. 51. The general idea is to create true
appetite in a body purified by fasting and a mind
clarified by meditation, so as to make certain of
being perfectly intoxicated. It should be
needless to say that this state of mind, like all
others, should be absolutely willed, criticized
and controlled.
- The Aethyrs
pertain to an order of nature, sui generis.
Though they possess many correspondences with the
32 Paths of Wisdom, all of these must be
impartially banished; otherwise the Vacuum would
be disturbed by an unequilibrated symbol
sympathetic with the Aire to be invoked, which
would flood the circle, and prevent the Aethyr
arising in its perfect plenitude.
- This injunction
has several obvious Magical advantages. The
symbolic gesture is to consume the matter of the
Operation in the Spirit thereof.
- This is by no
means a gesture of supplication, the vile
attitude of the unmanly devotee of the
Slave-Gods. It has as specific and positive
practical purpose, which should be easy for the
Neophyte to divine if his Zelator have well and
wisely so instructed him.
- I. Gold for
Horus.
II. Scarlet for Babalon.
III. Violet for {Mercury} House of IV. Emerald
for {Venus} Love of Juggler. Virgin. V. Silver
for Star A{.·.} A{.·.} VI. Sapphire for
Chokmah. VII. Orange for (?) VIII. Indigo for (?)
IX. Grey for Binah, fertilized. X. Black for the
Abyss. XI. Maroon, for Yesod the XII. Russet for
the Concealed threshold. Blood in the Cup. XIII.
Green-gray for Garden of Nemo XIV. Amber for Atu
VII, XV. Olive for Salome, {Water} of XVI. Pale
Blue for (?) Malkuth. XVII. Crimson for {Pisces}.
XVIII. Bright yellow for Holy Guardian Angel and
Hegemone. XIX. Crimson-silver for XX. Mauve for
Atu X. Binah and {Moon}. XXI. Pale green for (?)
XXII. Rose madder for Rose of 49. XXIII. Violet
Cobalt for XXIV. Beetle Brown, for {Scorpio}
{Aquarius} Eagle. Love. XXV. Cold dark gray for
{Capricorn} XXVI. White flecked with red, blue
& yellow (edges green) for Osiris. XXVII.
Angry Clouds, red brown XXVIII. Indigo for Night
sky of brown for smoke of cauldron. Binah. XXIX.
Blue green for {Scorpio} XXX. Miscellaneous
colours for Change. original confusion of dying
Aeon.
- This injunction
is to be taken very seriously. I have known
uninitiates made ill by the shock of seeing
Adepts of too high "residual charge";
worse, thrown off their moral balance.
- Presumably Sir
Edward Kelly. There is certainly no hint of the
sublimity and profundity of such visions as the
present series in the working of that adept.
- This peroration
suggests that early working by its style. It has
little definite thought contained in it; the
sublimity of the language ill conceals its
vagueness. Nevertheless, it is a fitting
conclusion to the mystery of this Aire. The
ritual, and its lyrical outburst, were doubtless
necessary to let the seer down gently from the
colossal exaltation of the central event of the
Aethyr.