1. Nu! the hiding of Hadit.

We see again set forth the complementary character of Nuit and Hadit. 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.

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.

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, 0°=pa qb, whether pa-qb=O 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. 0° 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 x 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.

3. In the sphere I am everywhere the centre, as she, the circumference, is nowhere found.

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 realized 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".

4. Yet she shall be known & I never.

See later, verse 13, "Thou (i.e., the Beast, who is here the Mask, or 'persona', 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.

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 time" is the Aeon of the Dying God. Some of its rituals are founded on an utterly false metaphysics and cosmogony; but others are based on Truth. We end those, and mend these.

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 Chokhmah 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 crystalline carbohydrate." 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 around the sun', we modify our former ideas 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 Nuit 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 ARC leading to A is A₂ 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 in 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 Manichaeism necessary—despite the cloaks of the Casuists—and meant 'That which leads one away from God'. But each man, while postulating an absolute 'God', defined Him unconsciously in terms of Freudian Phantasm created by his own wish-fulfilment machinery. Thus 'Good' 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 now 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 idea, 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.

This is being done despite the howling and gnashing of teeth, and will go on until the whole mess is cleaned up.

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.

It follows that, as Hadit can never be known, there is no death. (Except in the Initiatic sense —and very much so in this sense, dear 'Black Brethren'!) 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.

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.

"It is I that go." Liber Aleph must be consulted for a full demonstration of this truth. We may here 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 Nuit; 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 Nuit. 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 dimension. 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 relation 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, Space, Time and Gravitation). 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 Nuit 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 to every several point that it envelops. But Nuit 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 possibilities) and of the Motion of Hadit (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?

Some technical aspects of this verse had better be pointed out. "I am the Magician and the Exorcist": in any 'War', He is both sides. Whichever wins, if the victor wins by True Will, (we except here such 'Wars' as are caused by two people interfering with each other, both ignorant of their True Will) wins by Universal Necessity. Hadit, therefore, does not 'know' 'the fallen' Hadit knows only 'success; meaning: the acting out of the True Law of one's being. In order for Had it to manifest Himself in the 'knower; that is, in the Ruach, it is necessary that the Ruach be attuned to the Higher Triad —in which case 'failure; 'fear' and 'sorrow' become impossible. These things exist in terms of relations, but not as 'Absolutes'

"Come unto me" is a 'foolish word'—see our Commentary to AL I, 11—is a direct condemnation of 'Black Brotherhood', that is ,Imperfect Initiation. The 'Black Brother' opens his arms to his fellow men and cries out, "Come unto me, ye who suffer, and be consoled!" He does this by the unbalance of his Ego. He has received a sufficient influx of Magick Force to 'feel good; and his spiritual pride infuses him with pity for his fellow beings, particularly his own species. He wants to console' them. In point of fact, however, he will enslave them, for he is unable to see their true nature at all. If he could see it, he would understand what Hadit means by stating categorically: "it is I that go."

Try to remember that your neighbour does not need your pity. He may, at the most, need your respect. Because if you respect him, you stop meddling in his affairs!

8. Who worshipped Heru-pa-kraath have worshipped me; ill, for I am the worshipper.

Again Hadit (Aiwass speaking for Him, of course!) lays down the Law in no uncertain manner. He is Heru-pa-kraath, and who worships Him is doing ill, not only to himself or herself, but to mankind as a whole. "I am the worshipper".

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, verse 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.

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.

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. (This is true even when what occurs is apparently the result of a Diseased Will at work, as a 'Black Brother' . For the 'Black Brother' bows his neck to Choronzon. See Liber Aleph, Ch. 166) 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.

The above is neither 'philosophy' nor 'consolation'; it is a fact; but the assimilation of this fact is the result of a Trance, or rather, a succession of Trances. See Liber Aleph, Chapters 7-3 1, 36-3 7, 46, 53, 57.

It must be stressed once more that Hadit does not "know" people who are not yet conscious of, and doing their. True Wills, and that such people are included in the category of 'shadows' The sensation of "That was a narrow escape!" that Initiates have at the moment of death comes from the Ruach's intuitive perception that "this time" it almost, just not quite, severed its connection with the Higher Triad. The danger of any incarnation is this. And perhaps one of its attractions? . .. See LXV, ii, vv. 3-6; iii, vv. 30-33; iv, vv. 18-2 1, 42- 47; v, vv. 8-10.

10. 0 prophet! thou hast ill will to learn this writing.

As related in Book Four, Part IV, and 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 are times when I feel that the amoeba, the bourgeois, and the cow represent the ABC of enviable creatures. There may be a melancholy 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.

11. I see thee hate the hand & the pen; but I am stronger.

This compulsion was that of true inspiration. It was the Karma of countless incarnations of struggle towards the light. There is a sharp revulsion, 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.

12. Because of me in Thee which thou knewest not.

The use of capitals "Me" and "Thee" emphasizes that Hadit was wholly manifested in The Beast. (On the contrary. As readers will notice, "Me" is not in capitals in the text, only "Thee" It is not Hadit, but Aiwass, who is speaking. He is saying that he was manifested in the Higher Triad of Crowley, and that Crowley's Ruach —the lower "I" — was not conscious of this. Aiwass, being an Ipsissimus, is manifested in any Higher Triad; also, not being a 'Black Brother; He knows that He can manifest himself in another's Higher Triad only as part of that Higher Triad's consciousness. The Centre of any Higher Triad's consciousness is Its Point-of-View — Hadit. And Hadit "is alone". There is no God where He is. This very difficult point remains obscure without Initiatic Experience, but 666 had enough even at the time of writing this Commentary to explain the situation more clearly. That He fails to do so is proof of how much his conscious Ego —Aleister Crowley — was upset still by the experience.) It is to be remembered that The Beast had agreed to follow the instructions communicated to Him (Through his wife Rose.) 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. (Such malcontents are often not part of one 's own personality, but people who may be on the other side of the world, yet who have Karmic ties with us. This is one of the manners in which the Achievements of the Initiate benefit his fellowmen.)

13. for why? Because thou wast the knower, and me.

A.C. asked mentally "why he didn't know'; and Aiwass explains that A.C. was functioning only in his personality and in Aiwass's Presence in him — Readers must not forget that Aiwass was Crowley's Holy Guardian Angel.

Hadit had to overcome the silly "knower" (Again, error. It isn't Hadit—it's Aiwass. And this was a very special case. Were it not for the fact that Hadit-Aiwass and Hadit-Beast were in close harmony, Aiwass would never have interfered in A. C. 's personality — the "scribe". This case is analogous to cases of "rape" where there is a genuine attraction between the man and the woman, but it is masked by complexes or prejudices. Only the aftereffects of the act will prove whether it was "moral" or not. This is the 'reason' why Adepts often seem to act with complete callousness and lack of consideration for other people's feelings. Please do not confuse 'Adepts' with 'Black Brethren; though!), who thought everything was Sorrow. Cf. "Who am I?" — "Thou knowest" in Chapter I. (An altogether different case. A. C. was asking what Star was he, and the Goddess answered that he already knew — he was 666. Again the injured feelings of 666's personality cause confusion! ... This is all to the good, though, since it provides us with an example of the relationship between an Adept's Higher Triad, His Instrument, and His Holy Guardian Angel!)

I am far from satisfied with either of the above interpretations of this verse. We shall see a little later, vv. 27 et seq., 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. (The personality speaking!. . .) 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.

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" (he persists in the error) constitutes a state wherein "thou knewest not". By "knewest" we may understand the function of Hadit (still he persists!), intellectually and conjugally united with Nuit. See Book 4, Part III, for GN, the root meaning both 'to know' and 'to beget'. (This is better.) And 'not' is Nuit (But Hadit is at pains to state that He is Not! Hadit and Nuit are complementary.), 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. (He gets more and more entangled in his own reasoning. Clearly, the writing down of this passage of Liber AL was a very humiliating experience for Aleister Crowley.) 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 the two different symbols 'not' (Greek OU) and 'me' (Greek 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. (This last simply proves that the "rape" by Aiwass of the mind of Aleister Crowley was the result of the formulated Aspiration of this mind to be raped ... Otherwise, Aiwass would not have done it. It can never be stated too clearly that True Initiates never interfere with the True Will of the least and weakest [senseless expression from above the Abyss, but!] ... human being.)

He combines in these few words (a) a correct psychological explanation of the situation (he does), (b) a correct magical explanation of that explanation (ibidem), (c) a personal rebuke (not so — a reminder. He interprets it as rebuke because the Ego is still resentful) 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. (On the contrary, they demonstrate that the Author is of our species, though one of its most highly evolved members. Obviously, He was one of the first specimens of the race to achieve consciousness. Aiwass is human — it is we who aren't.)

14. Now let there be a veiling of this shrine: now let the light devour men and eat them up with blindness!

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.
Serious readers should consult Libri LXV and VII on this light that
"devours men and eats them up with blindness." Particularly LXV,
4 12-19, 24; ii, 30-32; iv, 54-55, 65; and VII, iv, 8-15, 25,48-49; vi, 20-
25, 47; vii, 28-33, 3 6-44.

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.

Readers should consult AL I, 45-48 and the Commentaries thereof for "perfect, being Not"; also, the analysis of the Word LAShTAL in Liber V; also, LXV, ii, 26.

For "nine by the fools," they should consult Atu IX and Atu XI (Atu XI because Teth has the value 9 in the Qabalah). "By the fools" has, of course, a double meaning. Jesod is the Ninth Sephirah, and its symbolism and the Ordeals of the Zelator should be considered.

For "eight and one in eight with the just" they should study the meaning of Atu VII, because Cheth is 8 by the Qabalah; of Aleph, because Aleph is 1 by the Qabalah; of Atu I and of Atu VIII.
Serious students should never forget that those symbols all run into each other, and that particularly in the case of "eight, and one in eight." It should be noted that first "eight" is considered by itself; then, with "one" in it.
"The Empress and the King are not of me". His name could not be written HD (HaD), as Crowley thought at the time of the dictation,because He is not the "King", that is, the Emperor. See AL I, 57, the Second Paragraph, and A. C. 's Commentary thereunto.

16. I am The Empress & the Hierophant. Thus eleven, as my bride is eleven.

Please notice that "The Empress" is written with capitals. In the previous verse the sentence starts after a period, so it is natural for the The of Empress to be in the uppercase. In this verse, there is no reason for The to be capitalized unless there is a hidden meaning. There is no other instance in the entire manuscript of the definite article being capitalized unless it starts a sentence. Hadit is emphasizing that this is a "greater Empress" that he is talking about. This is of course He, the Star, who is not the King as A. C. thought at the time. Hadit then means simply that his name can be written HV, "The Empress & the Hierophant". The value, of course, is 11.

It should be noted that "Hu" was the oldest name that the Egyptians ascribed to the Sphinx at Gizeh. The word means Prince.

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.

To know Hadit only as 'not' is to be able to experience one's own starry identity only through physical death. It can never be too clearly understood that only the Initiate can infuse the Ruach with the Influence of the Supernals. Those who call themselves Initiates and yet speak of the need of "pain", and "suffering", and "meek resignation" in this world to gain a "better life elsewhere" are merely puppets of the tyrants of religion, finance, or politics. In this sense, undoubtedly, religion is the opium of the masses. Let us keep the lambs uninstructed, lest they perceive that their sorrows are not decreed by Divine Providence, but are merely the consequence of our oppression.

" — as yet." This is clearly enheartening. This folk will come to know Hadit —that is, Themselves. That's why AL was dictated, so they would emancipate themselves. And that's why all the resources of propaganda were turned against Crowley in his lifetime everywhere. The death-knell of superstition and privilege was being tolled, and the 'Black Brethren' didn't like the sound at all.

The dead and the dying, who know not Hadit, are under 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' or negativity, action, and individuality.

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.

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.

It is rather difficult for the profane to understand that our material conditions are the direct consequence of our psychological structure, but such is in fact the case. It is useless to try to change the surroundings of the poor; unless they are "kings in disguise" — see verse 58 — they will immediately start modifying their improved surroundings to fit their inner state. If you put a pig to live in a palace, the pig will turn the palace into a pigsty. The simile is strong, but not exaggerated. Examples abound in the history of revolutions, from the French down to the Russian and beyond.

If you want to change a man's living conditions, you must educate the man, provided he is capable of being educated. Once educated, he will soon change his surroundings by his own powers.

The oppression of tyrants is no argument against the above truth. No tyrant will ever coerce a free man. The most he can do is kill him —before he is killed, as he undoubtedly will be if he does not leave the free man — the "star" — alone.

"We are not for the poor and sad." The poor and sad are not conscious of the Triad Nuit-Hadit-Hoor in their intellect. See Liber V for the meaning of "not" —LA.

"The lords of the earth are our kinsfolk," Not the "Lords of the poor and sad"! These are the 'Black Brothers'. The lords of the earth are those who have control over their surroundings, over the material site of their 'existence'. That is, the true men. The others are asleep, and being asleep are merely animals walking on two legs —the "unfeathered bipeds" of Diogenes.

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.

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.

Its Will, in this case, being a Bud- Will of the engineer — we hope. Readers will note that "God" and "dog" are the same value by the Qabalah, but the letters are inverted in order. In either case, the value is either 77—if we treat the 0 as an Ayin —or 13, if we treat the 0 as a Vau. 77 is the Goat, the Devil; 13 is the Atu Death, in which the central figure once again is Saturn, the Great One of the Night of Time. This is the "God No" —the God who can live in a dog. Again, there is an identification between the Qabalistic values of No and ON, for which see Liber XV and others. "No" can, of course, be written NV, 56, Nuit; but is also 50+70=120, the mystical age of the Adept Minor. The Adept Minor has crossed that Veil on one side of which is written "No separate existence'; and on the other, "No existence".

There is, of course, one God who lives in a dog —the God Anubis, who guides the soul in the Underworld. This is a hint for members of a certain Grade. It must also be remarked that "the Dog" was one of the names ascribed to the "Devil" in the Middle Ages.

The verse has, therefore, several subtle technical meanings which will depend for usefulness on the Grade of the reader—which, by the way, is the case with any verse of Liber AL. The general meaning, however, is that ascribed by A. C., with the added value that "dog" is "God" inverted. Men and women called "dogs" are, therefore, people who are functioning with their polarity inverted —who are functioning as animals, rather than as "lords of the earth". This, by the way, is the case with any person who worships a "God" outside himself or herself, instead of perceiving God (any God!) within. And the key is to reverse the formula. Instead of "loving" or "fearing" your "God'; BE your "God"! He, she, or it is nothing but a projection of your own consciousness, anyway. "There is no God where I am."

Certain rather amusing little obsessions through which Aspirants may pass had better be mentioned. First, is the idea that Liber AL recommends that all dogs be killed. Second, the idea that all dogs conceal a "spy" —from which you gravitate naturally to the previous conclusion. Third, the idea that dogs should be "despised" or "mistreated" or treated as human beings. (Or rather, better than you would treat a human being, as some dog lovers do!) They should be treated like dogs, that is, like any other animals — with respect. (By respect" is not meant that the Chinese must stop eating chow!)

One of the more amusing obsessions in this connection is that concerning Sirius —the "Dog Star". Certain "initiates" who fear 666 and Liber AL whisper to their "disciples" that "the site of the Rosy Cross Brotherhood is in Sirius." Meaning, of course, themselves. Poor Sirius!...

Any person who has not achieved consciousness of his or her own Godhead tends to mistreat animals. Either is too cruel towards them, or too kind. A member of a certain American family who achieved great political notoriety was actually known, during the last World War (World War II, for the benefit of future readers), to demand that his dog be given a seat in the last plane to leave an island in the Pacific. The dog weighed as much as a wounded G.I., but a G.I. remained behind so the gentleman's dog could return to the bosom of the gentleman's family. The gentleman had already been elected to public office, and was elected again. It can never be too often repeated that any people always have the government they deserve.

In connection with this and other verses of this Chapter. serious students should consult LXV, i, 21; ii, 3; iii, 3 7-39; iv, 60; v, 5; and VII, iv, 8; vi, 5-6.

20. Beauty and strength, leaping laughter and delicious languor, force and fire, are of us.

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. (Needless to say, in either case, he was not much of a king. I would like to have seen a woman trying either maneuver with Crowley, for one! More on kings later.) But one must be a flaming harlot— one must let oneself go, whether one's star be twin with that of Shelley, 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.

There is also, of course, a technical meaning. Beauty is Tiphereth, Strength is Jesod, Leaping Laughter is Hod, Delicious Languor is Netzach, Force is XI, Fire is XVL The "highest" must have conquered the Lower Triad, and be well (if you will pardon the pun) on their way to conquer Geburah and Gedulah. This organization is necessary before you can know and do your True Will with even some degree of efficiency. For although Gimel brings you the Influence of Kether, the disorder of the Mind and the grossness of the Emotions hinder your attempts to interpret and reflect it. That is why most of your fellowmen are little better than wild animals —are domestic animals — dogs.

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.

Crowley was upset by this verse of the Second Chapter all his life, and some of his more egregious blunders were attempts to punish himself for having written it down. It must be understood, for it strikes at the root of slave-morals.

"We have nothing with the outcast and the unfit." Nothing—Nuit. Outcast —Initiates who have been expelled for wrong-doing, that is, 'Black Brethren'. Unfit — those as yet incapable of being initiated, that is, the great majority of mankind. We have Nuit in common with them. To the 'Black Brethren' She manifests Herself as 333 — that Influence that will eventually destroy them, that is, force them to cross the Abyss whether they "will" or no. To common mankind She is manifested in all Nature, but particularly so in women everywhere. There is, of course, a further meaning, having to do with the Communion of the Saints of which we have already spoken.

"For they feel not." Upon dying — whether physical or initiatic death —they become conscious of their starry nature —Had it. The Will-to-Die has to be treated with the same respect as the Will-to-Live. Who are you to trace another star's course?

"Compassion is the vice of kings." This is not to be interpreted as meaning that kings should have no compassion. It is a straight assertion of fact: only kings have compassion! Petty souls delight in the sufferings of others. The mob shouts with glee at the sight of blood. Nor is compassion to be confused with pity. Pity is of the Ego, and involves a comparison between yourself and the object of pity —which is duality. Compassion, as the etymology indicates, involves a 'sharing with'. The equivalent Greek word is empathy. Compassion is never maudlin. On the contrary, those who experience it often feel furious with others who only show "pity".

"Stamp down the wretched & the weak" By all means; but who are the wretched & the weak? This writer remembers turning a street corner and seeing a man in the throes of an epileptic attack. A crowd of passersby had congregated around the man and watched his antics with prim and solemn faces. The writer felt a strong wish to obliterate them from the face of the earth. He did what he could to ease the epileptic's situation, and as soon as the star started recovering control of its vehicles he went away, knowing that the star would feel embarrassed. The crowd remained behind to watch.

We must seek a clear definition of our values. Who is strong? The man who delights in the suffering of other humans, or who needlessly hurts an animal? Or, on the other hand, the man who condemns scientists who experiment on animals to learn how to cure diseases, and is always eager to intervene between his neighbor and his private grief?

Who is strong? The man who allows the existence and prosperity of others who think differently from him, who refuse to serve him or his ideals, or the man who interprets every demonstration of autonomy as an affront of his ego?

Who is weaker? The Nazi who burned a dead Jew in an oven, or any man who worships a God that he considers willing to let a living soul burn in hell forever?

Who is stronger? The man who daily scatters fish among the hungry, or the man who teaches the hungry how to fish for themselves?

Who is a king? The man who says "I am the light of the world; come unto me, ye who suffer, and be consoled," or the man who says "Every man and every woman is a star; 'Come unto me 'is a foolish word; for it is I that go."?

Reader, the choice is yours; the kings of the earth shall be Kings for ever; the slaves shall serve. There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.

While we are on the subject of kings, we must touch upon that lie: "That Thou Must Die." Verse 49 of Chapter One should be consulted in connection with this; also the Golden Bough, the New Testament of the Bible, and the Mystery of Osiris in any good textbook of Egyptology. For ten thousand years tribes all over the world sacrificed their kings. Compassion being the vice of kings, the kings were, quite often, willing to be sacrificed. This was a magickal operation to buy energy for the people, but it was based on a wrong interpretation of the Bloody Sacrifice, for which see Book Four, Part Three.

The result of these ten thousand years of killing the goose that lay the golden eggs — if Alchemists will pardon the atrocious pun — is that Aspirants may become obsessed by the idea that they must die for the benefit of the "lower brethren"; or "mankind"; or what not. They are enthusiastically encouraged in this illusion by the 'Black Brethren'; who are only too eager to get rid of Aspirants. The 'savior complex'; as Wilhelm Stekel called it, is extremely insidious because it is connected with Spiritual Pride. Actually, it is an insult to your fellowmen. Every man and every woman is a star. No soul needs to be saved by you —or could be saved by you, if you tried. The story of "Jesus Christ"; as interpreted in the Nicean Creed, is a blasphemy.

Serious students should consult Liber OZ and A. C. 's translation of the Tao Teh King; also Liber VII, vi, 22-25, 40-41, and vii, 36-39; and the following chapters of Liber Aleph: 30-35, 39,64,66,67-77,99,104, 105, 113, 116-118, 147, 148, 192-194.

There follows the Commentary to this verse by A.C.

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. (Weak either in physical or intellectual strength. Darwin never spoke of survival of brute strength; he spoke of survival of the fittest. If brute strength were the aim of the Law of Evolution, dinosaurs would rule the earth, and man, physically the weakest of the great mammals, would be extinct.) 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! (Lions is in capitals.)

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. (Crowley was too modest to understand that though all men are stars, not all men are kings, and not all kings are Kings.) We must therefore go back to Spartan ideas of education; (With a generous sprinkling of Athenian, perhaps; but to go forward to Thelemic ideas of education is infinitely better. See Liber Aleph, 30-49.) 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! (Again Lions is in capitals.)

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. (The reader may here object that he does not believe in reincarnation; but whether he does or not, this does not change the validity of the Law of Evolution. It is immaterial whether a man's soul is immortal; it is material that he have good health and a good brain.) 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! (Yes, but who decides whose soul is rotten? People have said that Crowley's soul is rotting in hell for years. This reasoning is entirely fallacious, much below his usual standard. He is merely trying to defend a verse that he abhors. Now, as he changes the subject, his manner improves. He never understood the meaning of this verse at all.)

Hadit calls himself the Star (Not in the least; servants of the Star & the Snake are the Adepts, serving Babalon and the Beast. One does not serve Had it; "for it is I that go."), 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 life-time, 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 Night-gowns 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 show. 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 co-substantial and coherent, each aequipollent, independent, and interdependent.

We may thus acquiesce in the fact that it is apodeitically 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 Thousand Million is One Billion. In the Universe formulated 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 maybe 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 a 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 be the "Name" of 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 his 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 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's 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 won 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 fitten 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, and 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 unintelligble, 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.

Such was, and is, the case of the Artist Aleister Crowley.

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.

Drunkenness is a curse and a hindrance only to slaves. Shelley's couriers were 'drunk on the wind of their own speed'. Anyone 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. 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 are 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.

"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 Bougereau 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 abc =d,a=d-b-c just as much as bd-c-a. It is senseless to pick out one equation as and another as 'nasty'. Personal predilections are evidence of imperfect vision (All this is philosophical, of course. Your imperfect vision, inpractice,justifies your personal predilections. Or, in other words, Do what thou wilt!). 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.

Some technical aspects of the verse had better be touched upon. First, note that to worship Hadit one is to take 'wine and strange drugs', for which see Liber Aleph, Chapters 93-94. This is because you ARE Hadit; alcohol and such drugs temporarily release your inhibitions, your complexes and the brainwashing you have been subjected to since your birth in a slave-culture, and let your True Self come to the surface of your consciousness. If the coming is violent or 'anti-social', this is not caused by the drugs or the alcohol. They are not 'evil' or 'corrupting'. They merely liberate. Remember the Djin in the fisherman's bottle of the Thousand and One Nights. During the first thousand years of his imprisonment he vowed that he would make rich the man who freed him. In the second thousand years confinement had made him so angry that he vowed he would kill that man. Violence and 'anti-social' behavior may appear when alcohol or drugs are used. Such symptoms simply mean that your True Self has been violently repressed for too long. They do not mean that your True Self is 'evil'. They indicate a need for a complete change of environment and moral code, a search for circumstances that will make easier your self-expression. You must heed carefully the warning and, if you are not a fool, you will bless the drugs that afforded you such an insight into your state of spiritual servitude to false (false to you!) idols and ideals. See Liber Aleph, 3, 30-35, 1 04-105, 118. Also, Emerson's essay, "Self Reliance".

The present laws against the use of drugs in all so-called 'civilized' countries were passed by people totally ignorant of the nature and effect of the drugs concerned, at the instigation of people who were only too aware of the liberating power of such drugs. For the same reason do these people disapprove of free sexual intercourse—they know that the catharsis of orgasm also liberates, even if for one moment, the True Self within. Remember, all ye, that no true God will ever condemn any act of self expression, even when exaggerated by past repression. Remember also that all false gods will.

The propaganda against drugs is fostered by 'Black Brethren' and done by religious organizations, by opportunistic politicians, and by (surprising as it may seem) the trafficants themselves. The Mafia and other outfits are certainly not interested in relaxation of anti-drug legislation. All crime syndicates would vanish within ten years if morphine, heroin, cocaine could be freely bought by any adult citizen from any licensed physician.

On the subject of drug-traffic and drug-addiction, readers are advised to consult the pertinent section in Mr. Erle Stanley Gardener's very interesting The Court of Last Resort, where some hard facts are courageously and uncompromisingly exposed.

"They shall not harm ye at all." Your True Self is not "evil". Of course, it is not "good", either! It merely is. Your conscious will never be harmed by intimacy with it; on the contrary. It is said that Aleister Crowley died of drug-addiction. He died in 1947, seventy-two years old, in complete possession of his not inconsiderable mental powers. He had been taking heroin since his teens, and experimented with practically all known drugs. He was the first man to postulate their psychoanalytic powers.

"The exposure of innocence is a lie." One of the main symptoms of infection by a diseased magical current is confusion in the vehicles. Sentimentality is thought tinged by emotion, and in such cases the thought is biased and the emotion misleading. People speak a lot about the innocence of children. Children are not innocent. They are merely ignorant. Ignorance is not innocence. Innocence consists in being true to oneself, in doing one's True Will. The ignorant cannot do this. Purity consists in keeping everything in its place, and you cannot do this if you don't know things and if you don't know their places. The place of a rigid penis is inside a lubricating vulva, and this, also, is purity. lam speaking, of course, as a heterosexual. If you prefer back sides, I will not deny you for it —provided you don't try to force your attentions on those of a different preference. And even if you try, I will be relatively lenient with you, for, as Blake said, you'll never know what is enough unless you know what is too much, and the way to Knowledge is the Way of Hard Knocks on a Thick Skull. Everybody is entitled to one mistake. To err is human. But to persevere in error is theological.

23. I am alone: there is no God where I am.

This refers to the spiritual experience of Identity. To admit God is to look up to God, and so not to be God. The curse of duality.

We refer the reader to the following verses in Chapter One, and the Commentaries thereon: 11, 21, 31, 45, 48. Also, to Chapter Three, verse 19.

24. Behold! these be grave mysteries; for there are also of my Mends 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.

A hermit is one who dwells isolated in the desert, exactly as a soul, a star (Not all stars, however; see Liber Aleph, 144) 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 satisfies his instinct of physical love. Of course, this is only one partial projection; to govern, to fight, and so on, must fulfill 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 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.

The above is very romantic, of course; Kings are not 'fighting to make them masters like ourselves'; they fight—when they fight at all —to avoid interference with their kingdoms. Low men, not being aware of their True Wills, tend to invade the prerogatives of others with tiresome frequency. From fighting to make them masters like us' to 'fighting to save them from themselves' to 'dying for their sins' the distance is minimal.

You cannot 'make' a King — note the word in capitals. A King makes himself A King is a man who 'wears the crown; and the crown has, of course, always been the symbol of an activated Sahashara. Unless the symbol stands for reality, the man is a 'king' but in name. No church can make a King, no parliament can make a King. The King is, first of all, King of his own soul. Next he may —or may not — be ruler over other men.

The entire concept of kingship has been vitiated by two thousand years of dogma. It makes even archaeologists commit egregious mistakes. For instance, it is now known that the Pyramids of Egypt were not built by "hundreds of thousands of slaves under the cruel lash of the overseer'; as the sadomasochism characteristic of the slave spirit would have us believe: they were built by select crews of workers who elected their own foremen and cheerfully competed with each other to see which crew would work faster. They were paid from the royal treasure and fed from the royal granaries. They recorded their own jokes or incidents of the working day in stone. One such inscription has been translated by scholars as meaning that "some gangs were so pleased to work for the King that, as a later foreman said, they toiled 'without a single man getting exhausted, without a man thirsting; and at last 'came home in good spirits, sated with bread, drunk with beer, as if it were the beautiful festival of a god' ". All this, of course, from their happiness in working for the King.

This is absolute bullshit. What the foreman actually wrote was a record of their working conditions. "Without a single man getting exhausted" means, evidently, that their working hours were short, perhaps five or six, with frequent rest periods. "Without a single man thirsting" means, evidently, that plenty of drinking water was made available to them during their working hours. And that at last they went home in good spirits, "sated with bread and drunk with beer, as if it were the beautiful festival of a god," means, evidently, that the King saw to it that they had plenty of food and drink for lunch or midafternoon meal before they went back to their homes at night. They were happy to work for the King not because the King was King, but because the King treated them as a decent and generous man should treat those who work for him. Their working hours were shorter, and the treatment they received better, than is common in many so-called civilized communities today. They liked their King, and inscribed disrespectful jokes about him, such as "The King is royally drunk today." Undoubtedly, they were a bit tipsy themselves.

Whenever the word King is used, there arises in the imagination of a 'low man' an image of arrogant and ruthless power. He envisions a Juggernaut ready to step all over him. This is what he wants, and this is what he usually gets, but not from a King — he gets it from a wretch like himself, and were he to wear a crown he would be a sadistic tyrant, just as now he is a masochistic slave. There follow a few technical interpretations of this verse.

"Hermits": This refers, of course, to the Third Grade of Thelemites, for which see Chapter One, vv. 40-4 1. "Now think not to find them," etc., means that now, that is, in this Aeon, a Hermit is not to live in seclusion. The Hermits of Thelema must live in the world without being of the world. This, by the way, is in harmony with the ancient rule of the so-called "Rosicrucians".

It should be axiomatic that the men most fit to govern ought to be those most hesitant to do so. A king's crown is a crown of thorns —if he is a good man and an honest king. The Tao Teh King — that Handbook of Sensible Government — is at pains to make this clear.

One of the sheerest wastes of the past Aeon was that those men most fit to occupy responsible positions were so disgusted by the animalism and stupidity of their fellowmen that they withdrew into desert regions and spent their lives in silent meditation. Thus their civilizing influence was lost to the world. At the same time, they failed to advance much in the kingdom of the spirit, having made things too easy for themselves. The spiritual musculature, like the physical, can be developed beyond any static condition only by being pitted against increased opposition. You must exercise your faculties, and you will be wise to find ever tougher problems to solve. Thus, in this Aeon, the Path of the Hermit goes into the world, and not out of it.

Readers must not confuse hermits with monks, by the way. Monasteries, like nunneries, are social communities. Hermits go solitary; monks hunt in packs.

"Beasts of women": this curious expression must not be interpreted as derogatory to womanhood. Every woman is a star. "Beasts of women" does not mean "bestial women" — see verse 70. There is a technical meaning, and it must be left to the "Right Ingenium" of the advanced Philosophus.

"Beware lest any force another" — beware of interfering with each other's True Will.

"The day of your wrath": See Liber VII, vii, vv. 29-39.

25. Ye are against the people, 0 my chosen!

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. 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.

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. (This is the product of atavism, those instincts having been perfectly good at another time and in another environment. But to refuse to adapt oneself to new conditions is to go the way of the dinosaur. See Liber Aleph, 124-132.) 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 Anthony 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, in 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 services of his imperial purpose.

A man's kingdom may be as small as a family and children, or as a hock-shop; it may be as great as an industrial corporation, or an entire nation. It matters not to the mechanics of the art of self government, which is the first step to government of others (which must—if you are a true king—always be relative to your particular positions as spiritual stars in the spiritual space of the Body of Nuit). See A. C. 's edition of the Tao Teh King.

The idea of "People'; however, by globing all individuals, no matter how diverse of nature or activity or interests, in one statistical monster with no head, is deadly misleading to freedom. You miss the tree for the forest, and you are the tree. It matters not one jot what others think or do; "every number is infinite". Your single individual opinion on a plate of the balance weighs as much as the opinions of all other stars gathered on the other, for your orbit is "at rest'; that is, its aim is Infinity, as is theirs, which means that your orbit is a function, or resultant, of all theirs. It is this that makes it unique, therefore as important as all theirs. The "people", therefore, if rightly understood, can never be more important than you. The plates weigh the same, for the Universe is balanced — is "at rest" Of course, you are the resultant" of the people, from the point -of view of the "people". (But there is no "point -of view of the people'; just the points-of view of all other stars, globally considered merely for convenience of thought.) But in the very same sense, the "people" is a resultant of you. And this perspective is sound and practical and actual, while the other is merely a philosophical abstraction. Louis XIV's gardener had as much right as the king to say "L'Etat, c'est moi." That is, if he was as good as a gardener as the king was as a king. This explains the power of revolutions, as also the universal belief in kings.

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 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.

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.

Intellectuals err terribly when they force proletarians to get '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 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!

To understand 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'. 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 Thompson.

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.3 1.) 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.

Some technical aspects of this verse had better be mentioned. First of all, HADIT equals 29 by the Qabalah, and so does BECAUSE. HADIT=5+1+4+10+9=29. BECAUSE = 2+5+3 +1 +6+7 +5 = 29.) "Because" means, therefore, a false sense of personal identity that may be taken for the true one, Hadit, by the unwary. Since the word 'Because' is evidently connected with the process of reasoning, we may equate it with the undisciplined Ruach, or Ego. In this sense pit' may not mean the Abyss, but a trap.

It must be understood that Liber AL does not "attack" the proper use of the mental faculties. But it points out, very emphatically, that intellection is, after all, but an instrument of the True Self The intellect-the Ego—is a good servant, but a bad master. To put it in scientific language: intellection is but a faculty that our race has developed in the process of adaptation to environment. It has made possible our empery over the entire animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms for the time being and under present conditions. It is possible, however, to imagine a future change to conditions in which the intellect became a liability, rather than an asset. Some thinkers have already pointed out that we are progressing too fast in intellect and too slow emotionally. Our technology is that of the year 2000, but our morals date of 3000 to 4000 B.C. We are brought up by our parents to behave as if the social conditions of the second half of the Twentieth Century were the same that led Moses to conceive the tribal code called the Ten Commandments. Unless we put the intellect in its proper perspective (the reasoning faculties, after all, occupy only one fifth of the total capacity of our brains), and develop a moral code better adapted to our present stage of evolution, we may end by atom- bombing each other to extinction. The purpose of Liber AL is precisely to introduce a new, fully adapted, code of ethics. The Author estimates that the code he proposes will fulfil the needs of human society for at least several centuries. (See AL III, 34) And the first step to acceptance and use of such a code is to demote Reason from its false crown of king of the Self to its true function of instrument of the Libido. Freud analysed the psyche correctly; but his emotional attachment to tabus (he was, after all, a Jew and a bourgeois) led him to the hopeless attempt of trying to saddle the lithe race-horse of the Contemporary Unconscious with the heavy accoutrements of the seedy nag of Palestine.

Reason is in capitals, which suggests a Qabalistic meaning. REASON =200+5+1+ 7+70+50=333, the number of Choronzon, "Dispersion". (See Liber 418, the Tenth Aethyr.) "Dogs of Reason" are, therefore, the "Black Brothers". Why shall he perish with the "Black Brothers"? Because he will join their current. It manifests itself in the lower cakkrams, particularly those of the heart and the navel. The bodily Prana is deflected by it. Man's vital force should rise from the Muladhara Cakkram to the higher head centers, Visudhi, Ajna and Sahashara (See Liber V); instead, it disperses itself in a reflex, confused, indirected activity of the intermediary centers. In the trained Initiate, the lower Cakkrams function entirely under the control of the head centers. Initiates are therefore frequently considered by "mediums" and "clairvoyants"to be "cold'; or "pitiless", or without compassion". Imperfect seers call the Initiate's aura "black'; being unable to perceive the radiation of the higher centers (See AL I, 16-18, 21,27, 28,29, 60; II, 6, 14,23, 50-53; III, 19-20, 22, 38,44-45,49, 74, 75.) The "Black Brothers'; on the other hand seem to them to "radiate sunlight". The Prana in them never rises to the higher centers at all, and its rate of vibration is low enough to be "seen of the unseeing". The only radiation of their higher centers is the normal nerve circuitry of the body. The Cakkrams, if developed and functioning, are like electric transformers. They step up the vibratory rate of Prana. The faster they spin, the "fainter" and "faerier" becomes the Initiate's aura, until it becomes attuned to the Aura of the Milky Way -the "Orgone light" of Wilhelm Reich-the "kisses of the stars". Or, if you prefer, to the Body of Nuit, which of course is omnipresent. Any lower forms of energy exist in it.)

If the Aspirant becomes attuned to "Because'; he may mistake the "Dog Syndrome" of Cakkram malfunction for the "God Syndrome" of higher Cakkram awakening. He will identify himself with the Egoic Complex of the "Black Brethren". "Because" is the reflex, on a much lower plane, of the Consciousness of Hadit. (Hadit is, of course, perceived only by the awakened Ajna. The Winged Globe of the Egyptians displays the "two petals of the Lotus" of Hindu symbolism.) Being a simulacrum, it is very dangerous. It includes all the egregora of "God" that have been formed through the centuries. All "Visions of God" of all religions belong to "Because". (The lower Dhyanas are all below the Abyss. They are mental phenomena —their only connection with the Element of Spirit is the Kundalini that energizes them. And Kundalini should not be wasted in the mind. It should be sent straight up to the higher centers. "There is no God where I am". Unfortunately, in practice it is almost impossible to avoid the occurrence of Dhyana, since the Yogi is just beginning and is not familiar with the mechanics of the Sheaths of the Self. And the temptation to mistake Dhyana for Samadhi is deadly. Some wretches have spent the rest of their lives in the firm belief that they "achieved". To such people the "Siddhi" described by Patanjali seem the Crown of Perfection!)

28. Now a curse upon Because and his kin!

This is against those Intellectuals aforesaid. There are no 'standards of Right'. Ethics is balderdash. Each Star must go its own orbit. To hell with 'moral Principle'; there is no such thing; that is a herd-delusion, and makes men cattle.

Such a doctrine does not make "law and order" and "civilized behavior" impossible; on the contrary, it is the first step towards true civilization. It should be obvious that I have no right to impose, or even try to impose, my personal standards on my neighbour. "Judge not, lest ye be judged." Nor does my neighbour have the right to impose his on me. If he does not like my ways, he is free to seek associates of his own sympathies, and so am L Society, in short, is not to be a community of slaves overseen by "Black Brothers'; but a fluid, loose association of free men who act in concert only where the selfish interests of each and every one of them counsels so. The selfishness of each one is the guarantee of the freedom of all. A business deal, to put it bluntly, has been mutually satisfactory and socially sound only when each party goes away convinced that it "did the other in". When a leader tells his followers that it is time to stop asking what their country (meaning him, of course!) can do for them, and start asking what they can do for their country, it is time for the followers to elect a new leader. The country must always be a function of the citizens, not the citizens a function of the country!

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 two things appears as causal. Even should we declare it to be casual, our minds would still insist that casuality 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.

One technical aspect of this and the following verse should be mentioned. Aspirants must beware of personifying the idea of Because. For instance, the late Rudolf Steiner fabricated an "Evil Being" which he called "Lucifer" —the false Lucifer, since he correctly insisted that the Christ —666— is the true Lucifer. His description of the powers and influence of "Lucifer" is the description of the idea, or set of conditions, that Aiwass calls "Because". But Steiner failed to realize that his idea of the "Christ" also fell into the category of Because! Steiner was a member of high grade of the Order of Illuminates. But Thelemites are not Illuminates. The word "Illuminate" implies that you have no inner light of your own, and this is the "Dog-syndrome" all over again. Every man and every woman is a star. The translation of the Latin title of Chapter 188 of Liber Aleph is "On Different Works of the Illuminators" —not Illuminates! You are referred once more to AL I 7-11, 49 and to AL II, 5-8, and the Commentaries thereon.

29. May Because be accursed for ever!

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.

30. If Will stops and cries Why, invoking Because, then Will stops & does nought.

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. The Will issues its orders accordingly, for unquestioning execution. If the Will should appeal to the mind, it must confuse itself with incomplete and uncoordinated ideas. The clamour of these cries crowns Anarchy, and action becomes impossible.

31. If Power asks why, then is Power weakness.

It is ridiculous to ask a dog why it barks. One must fulfil one's true Nature, one must do one's Will. To question this is to destroy confidence, and so to create an inhibition. If a woman asks a man who wishes to kiss her why he wants to do so, and he tries to explain, he becomes impotent. His proper course is to choke her into compliance, which is what she wants, anyhow.

Power acts: the nature of the action depends on the information received by the Will; but once the decision is taken, reflection is out of place. Power should indeed be absolutely unconscious. Every athlete is aware that his skill, strength, and endurance depend on forbidding mind to meddle with muscle. Here is a simple experiment. Hold out a weight at arm's length. If you fix your attention firmly on other matters, you can support the strain many times longer than if you allow yourself to think of what your body is doing.

32. Also reason is a lie; for there is a factor infinite & unknown; & all their words are skew-wise.

The "factor infinite & unknown" is the subconscious Will. 'On with the revel!' "Their words"—the plausible humbug of the newspapers and the churches. Forget it! Allons! Marchons!

One can see how enthusiastic he was about the Socialist Movement The "factor infinite & unknown" is the subconscious Will, in a sense; but in another sense, it is a factor in any equation in Nature. Modern Physics no longer postulates absolute laws for phenomena; it enunciates its judgments under the form of high probabilities. For instance, there is a very high probability that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow. But there is no a priori denial of the possibility that it may rise in the west, except that in all recorded history it has never been known to do so. This argument is obviously not sufficient to overrule the possibility, and we must keep an open mind on the subject. If we do, we will be prepared for the possibility of the sun rising in the west tomorrow, and will be quicker to adapt ourselves to the phenomenon than many so-called scientists. Men whose minds are fixed have been known to go insane when facts run contrary to their ideas.

"Their words" —the technical meaning, of course, is the 'word' as a formula of power. The 'words' of the 'Black Brothers' are always, of necessity, skew-wise. But now the words of past Magi are also so — see AL I, 49. They are to the Word of the Aeon of Horus as the Physics of Newton is to the Physics of Einstein. This is very important because of the natural inertia of the mind. Until Thelemic momentum be firmly established in the life of an Aspirant, his mind will continuously tend to fall back into "the pit called Because." He must live as if "Might Be" were "Is'; and persist in this apparently absurd course of conduct until the external world adapts itself to his Will. See LXV, Chapter Five, verses 52-56. The adaptation of the external world to the Will is inevitable if the Will be the True Will, because you are a Star in the Body of Nuit. Infinite Space is a function of you. You are Hadit, and Nuit is your Complement. See AL II, verse 1. This is why "Success is thy proof" (Of course, the reverse idea is also true — you are a function of Infinite Space —See AL I, verse 1. But this merely means that the Third Kind of Magickal Link —see Book Four, Part III—is always present, and a form of the First Kind.)

It has been explained at length in a previous note that 'reason is a lie' by nature. We may here add certain confirmations suggested by the 'factor'. A and a (not-A) together make up the Universe. As a is evidently 'infinite and unknown', its equal and opposite A must be no less. Again, from any proposition S is P, reason deduces 'S is not p'; thus the apparent finitude and knowability of S is deceptive, since it is in direct relation with p.

No matter what n may be, n + ¥, the number of the inductive numbers, is unaltered by adding or subtracting it. There are just as many odd numbers as there are numbers altogether. Our knowledge is confined to statements of the relations between certain sets of our own sensory impressions: and we are convinced by our limitations that 'a factor infinite and unknown' must be concealed within the sphere of which we see but one minute part of the surface. As to reason itself, what is more certain than that its laws are only the conscious expression of the limits imposed upon us by our animal nature, and that to attribute universal validity, or even significance, to them is a logical folly, the raving of our megalomania? Reason is no more than a set of rules developed by the race; it takes no account of anything beyond sensory impressions and their reactions to various parts of our being. There is no possible escape from the vicious circle that we can register only the behaviour of our own instrument. We conclude, from the fact that it behaves at all, that there must be 'a factor infinite and unknown' at work upon it. This being the case, we may be sure that our apparatus is inherently incapable of discovering the truth about anything, even in part.

Modern scie