220A2-1.ASC 1. We see again set forth the complementary character of Nuith and Hadith. Nu
220A2-1.ASC
1. We see again set forth the complementary character of Nuith and
Hadith. Nu conceals Had because He is Everywhere in the Infinite, and
She manifests Him for the same reason. See verse 3. Every Individual
manifests the Whole; and the Whole conceals every Individual. The Soul
interprets the Universe; and the Universe veils the Soul. Nature
understands Herself by becoming self-conscious in Her units; and the
Consciousness loses its sense of separateness by dissolution in Her.
There has been much difficulty in the orthography (in sacred
languages) of these names. Nu is clearly stated to be 56; but Had is
only hinted obscurely. This matter is discussed later more fully;
verses 15 and 16.
2. 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 = 0 or not. But we ask how the homogeneity of both
Nuit and Hadit can ever lead to even the illusion of `difference.' The
answer appears to be that this difference appears naturally with the
self-realization of Nuit as the totality of possibilities; each of
these, singly and in combination, is satisfied or set in motion by
Hadit, to compose a particular manifestation, could possess no
signification at all, unless there were diverse dimensions wherein it
had no extension. `Nothing' means nothing save from the point of view
of `Two,' just as `Two' is monstrous unless it is seen as a mode of
`Nothing.' The above explanation appears somewhat disingenuous, since
there is no means whatever of distinguishing any Union H N = R from
another. We must postulate a further stage. R (Ra-Hoor-Khuit) Kether,
Unity, is always itself; but we may suppose that a number of such
homogeneous positive manifestations may form groups differing from
each other as to size and structure so as to create the illusion of
diversity.
3. This is again interesting as throwing light on the thesis; Every
man and every woman is a star. There is no place soever that is not a
Centre of Light. This Truth is to be realised by direct perception,
not merely by intellection. It is axiomatic; it cannot be
demonstrated. It is to be assimilated by experience of the Vision of
the `Star- Sponge.'
4. See later, verse 13, `Thou (i.e. the Beast, who is here the
Mask, or `per-sona,' of Hadit) wast the knower.' Hadit possesses the
power to know, Nuit that of being known. Nuit is not unconnected with
the idea of Nibbana, the `Shoreless Sea, ' in which Knowledge is Not.
Hadit is hidden in Nuit, and knows Her, She being an object of
knowledge; but He is not knowable, for He is merely that part of Her
which She formulates in order that She may be known.
5. The `old time' is the Aeon of the Dying God. Some of his rituals
are founded on an utterly false metaphysic and cosmogony; but others
are based on Truth. We mend these, and end 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 Chokmah by Binah, and crown of Microprosopus; yet
he is not one of the Sephiroth, and his place is in the Abyss. By this
symbolism we draw attention to the fact that Knowledge is by nature
impossible; for it implies Duality and is therefore relative. Any
proposition of Knowledge may be written `ARB:' `A has the relation R
to B.' Now if A and B are identical, the proposition conveys no
knowledge at all. If A is not identical with B, ARB implies `A is
identical with BC;' this assumes that not less than three distinct
ideas exist. In every case, we must proceed either to the identity
which means ultimately `Nothing,' or to divergent diversities which
only seem to mean something so long as we refrain from pushing the
analysis of any term to its logical elements. For example, `Sugar is
sugar' is obviously not knowledge. But no more is this: `Sugar is a
sweet white crystalline carbo-hydrate.' For each of these four terms
describes a sensory impression on ourselves; and we define our
impressions only in terms of such things as sugar. Thus `sweet' means
`the quality ascribed by our taste to honey, sugar, etc.'; `white' is
`what champaks, zinc oxide, sugar, etc. report to our eyesight;' and
so on. The proposition is ultimately an identity, for all our attempts
to evade the issue by creating complications. `Knowledge' is therefore
not a `thing-in-itself;' it is rightly denied a place upon the Tree of
Life; it pertains to the Abyss. Besides the above considerations, it
may be observed that Knowledge, so far as it exists at all, even as a
statement of relation, is no more than a momentary phenomenon of
consciousness. It is annihilated in the instant of its creation. For
no sooner do we assent to ARB than ARB is absorbed in our conception
of A. After the nine-days' wonder of `The earth revolves round the
sun,' we modify our former idea of Earth. `Earth' is intuitively
classed with other solar satellites. The proposition vanishes
automatically as it is assimilated. Knowledge, while it exists as such
is consequently sub judice, at the best. What then may we understand
by this verse, with its capital K for `Knowledge:' What is it, and how
shall it `go aright?' The key is in the word `go.' It cannot `be,' as
we have seen above; it is the fundamental error of the `Black
Brothers' in their policy of resisting all Change, to try to maintain
it as fixed and absolute. But (as the Tree of Life indicates)
Knowledge is the means by which the conscious mind, Microprosopus,
reaches to Understanding and to Wisdom, its mother and father, which
reflect respectively Nuith and Hadit from the Ain and Kether. The
process is to use each new item of knowledge to correct and increase
one's comprehension of the Subject of the Proposition. Thus ARB should
tell us: A is (not A, as we supposed) but A. This facilitates the
discovery A,R.C leading to A, is A ; and so on. In practice, every
thing that we learn about (e.g.) `horse' helps us to understand -- to
enjoy -- the idea. The difference between the scholar and the
schoolboy is that the former glows and exults when he is reminded of
some word like `Thalassa.' Ourselves:- What a pageant of passion
empurples our minds whenever we think of the number 93! Most of all,
each new thing that we know about ourselves helps us to realize what
we mean by our `Star.' Now, `the rituals of the old time,' are no
longer valid vehicles; Knowledge cannot `go aright' until they are
adapted to the Formula of the New Aeon. Their defects are due
principally to two radical errors. (1.) The Universe was conceived as
possessing a fixed centre, or summit; an absolute standard to which
all things might be referred; an Unity, or God. (Mystics were angry
and bewildered, often enough, when attaining to `union with God' they
found him equally in all). This led to making a difference between one
thing and another, and so to the ideas of superiority, of sin, etc.,
ending by absurdities of all kinds, alike in theology, ethics, and
science. (2) The absolute antithesis between the pairs of opposites.
This is really a corollary of (1). There was an imaginary `absolute
evil' which made Manichaeanism necessary -- despite the cloaks of the
Causists -- and meant `That which leads one away from God.' But each
man, while postulating an absolute `God' and `Evil' were really
expressions of personal prejudice. A man who `bowed humbly to the
Authority of' the Pope, or the Bible, or the Sanhedrim, or the Oracle
of Apollo, or the tribal Medicine-Man, none the less expressed truly
his own Wish to abdicate responsibility. In the light of this Book, we
know that the centre is everywhere, the circumference nowhere; that
`Every man and every woman is a star,' a `Khabs,' the name of the
house of Hadit; that `The word of Sin is Restriction.' To us, then,
`evil' is a relative term; it is `that which hinders one from
fulfilling his true Will.'(E.g., rain is `good' or `bad' for the
farmer according to the requirements of his crops). The Osirian
Rituals inculcating self-sacrifice to an abstract ideal, mutilation to
appease an ex cathedra morality, fidelity to a priori formulae, etc.
teach false and futile methods of acquiring false Knowledge; they must
be `cast away' or `purged'. The Schools of Initiation must be
reformed.
6. It follows that, as Hadit can never be known, there is no death.
The death of the individual is his awakening to the impersonal
immortality of Hadit. This applies less to physical death than to the
Crossing of the Abyss; for which see Liber 418, Fourteenth Aethyr. One
may attain to be aware that one is but a particular `child' of the
Play of Hadit and Nuit; one's personality is then perceived as being a
disguise. It is not only not a living thing, as one had thought; but a
mere symbol without substance, incapable of life. It is the
conventional form of a certain cluster of thoughts, themselves the
partial and hieroglyphic symbols of an `ego.' The conscious and
sensible `man' is to his Self just what the printed letters on this
page are to me who have caused them to manifest in colour and form.
They are arbitrary devices for conveying my thought; I could use
French or Greek just as well. Nor is this thought, here conveyed, more
than one ray of my Orb; and even that whole Orb is but the garment of
Me. The analogy is precise; therefore when one becomes `the knower,'
it involves the `death' of all sense of the Ego. One perceives one's
personality precisely as I now do these printed letters; and they are
forgotten, just as, absorbed in my thought, the trained automatism of
my mind and body expresses that thought in writing, without attention
on my part, still less with identification of the extremes involved in
the process.
7. `It is I that go.' The Book Aleph must be consulted for a full
demonstration of this truth. We may say briefly that Hadit is Motion,
that is, Change or `Love.' The symbol of Godhead in Egypt was the
Ankh, which is a sandal-strap, implying the Power to Go; and it
suggests the Rosy Cross, the Fulfilment of Love, by its shape. The
Wheel end the Circle are evidently symbols of Nuith; this sentence
insists upon the conception of Lingam-Yoni. But beyond the obvious
relation, we observe two geometrical definitions. The axle is a
cylinder set perpendicularly to the plane of the wheel; thus Hadit
supplies the third dimension to Nuith. It suggests that Matter is to
be conceived as Two-dimensional; that is, perhaps, as possessed of two
qualities, extension and potentiality. To these Hadit brings motion
and position. The wheel moves; manifestation now is possible. Its
perception implies three-dimensional space, and time. But note that
the Mover is himself not moved. The `cube in the circle' emphasizes
this question of dimensions. The cube is rectilinear (therefore
phallic no less than the axle); its unity suggests perfection
projected as a `solid' for human perception; its square faces affirm
balance, equity, and limitation; its six- sidedness sets it among the
solar symbols. It is thus like the Sun in the Zodiac, which is no more
than the field for His fulfilment in His going. He, by virtue of his
successive relations with each degree of the circle, clothes Himself
with an appearance of `Matter in Motion,' although absolute motion
through space is a meaningless expression (Eddington, Op, cit.). None
the less, every point in the cube -- there are 2 of them -- has an
unique relation with every point in the circle exactly balanced
against an equal and opposite relation. We have thus Matter that both
is and is not, Motion that both moves and moves not, interacting in a
variety of ways which is infinite to manifest individuals, each of
which is unlike any other, yet is symmetrically supported by its
counterpart. Note that even at the centre of gravity of the cube no
two rays are identical except in mere length. They differ as to their
point of contact with the circle, their right ascension, and their
relation with the other points of the cube. Why is Nuith restricted
to two dimensions? We usually think of space as a sphere. `None ----
and two:' extension and potentiality are Her only projections of
Naught. It is strange, by the way to find that modern mathematics says
`Spherical space is not very easy to imagine' (Eddington,
Op.cit.p.158) and prefers to attribute a geometrical form whose
resemblance to the Kteis is most striking. For Nuit is,
philosophically speaking, the archetype of the Kteis, giving
appropriate Form to all Being, and offering every possibility of
fulfilment of every several point that it envelops. But Nuith cannot
be symbolized as three-dimensional, in our system; each unit has
position by three spatial, and one temporal, coordinates. It cannot
exist, in our consciousness, with less, as a reality. Each
`individual' must be a `point-interval;' he must be the product of
some part of the Matter of Nuit (with special energies) determined in
space by his relations with his neighbours, and in time by his
relations with himself. It is evidently `a foolish word' for Hadit to
say `Come unto me,' as did Nuit naturally enough, meaning `Fulfil thy
possibilities;' for who can `come unto' Motion itself, who draw near
unto that which is in very truth his innermost identity?
8. Harpocrates is also the Dwarf-Soul, the Secret Self of every
man, the Serpent with the Lion's Head. Now Hadit knows Nuit by virtue
of his `Going' or `Love.' It is therefore wrong to worship Hadit; one
is to be Hadit, and worship Her. This is clear even from His
instruction `To worship me' in verse 22 of this chapter. Confer,
Cap.I, v.9. We are exhorted to offer ourselves unto Nuit, pilgrims to
all her temples. It is bad Magick to admit that one is other than
One's inmost self. One should plunge passionately into every posseble
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. This verse is very thoroughly explained in Liber Aleph. `All in
this kind are but shadows' says Shakespeare, referring to actors. The
Universe is a Puppet-Play for the amusement of Nuit and Hadit in their
Nuptials; a very Midsummer Night's Dream. So then we laugh at the mock
woes of Pyramus and Thisbe, the clumsy gambols of Bottom; for we
understand the Truth of Things, how all is a Dance of Ecstasy. `Were
the world understood, Ye would know it was good, a Dance to a lyrical
measure!' The nature of events must be `pure joy;' for obviously,
whatever occurs is the fulfilment of the Will of its master. Sorrow
thus appears as the result of any unsuccessful -- therefore,
ill-judged -- struggle. Acquiescence in the order of Nature is the
ultimate Wisdom. One must understand the Universe perfectly, and be
utterly indifferent to its pressure. These are the virtues which
constitute a Master of the Temple. Yet each man must act What he will;
for he is energized by his own nature. So long as he works `without
lust of result' and does his duty for its own sake, he will know that
`the sorrows are but shadows.' And he himself is `that which remains;'
for he can no more be destroyed, or his true Will be thwarted, than
Matter diminish or Energy disappear. He is a necessary Unit of the
Universe, equal and opposite to the sum total of all the others; and
his Will is similarly the final factor which completes the equilibrium
of the dynamical equation. He cannot fail if he would; thus, his
sorrows are but shadows - he could not see them if he kept his gaze
fixed on his goal, the Sun.
10. As related in Equinox I, VII, I was at the time of this
revelation, a rationalistic Buddhist, very convinced of the First
Noble Truth: `Everything is Sorrow.' I supposed this point of view to
be an absolute and final truth -- as if Apemantus were the only
character in Shakespeare! It is also explained in that place how I
was prepared for this Work by that period of Dryness. If I had been in
sympathy with it, my personality would have interfered. I should have
tried to better my instructions. See, in Liber 418, the series of
visions by which I actually transcended Sorrow. But the considerations
set forth in the comment on verse 9 lead to a simpler, purer, and more
perfect attainment for those who can assimilate them in the
subconscious mind by the process described in the comment on verse 6.
It may encourage certain types of aspirant if I emphasize my personal
position. AIWAZ made no mistake when he spoke this verse -- and the
triumphant contempt of his tone still rings in my ear! After seventeen
years of unparalleled spiritual progress, of unimaginably intense
ecstasies, of beatitudes prolonged for whole months, of initiations
indescribably exalted, of proof piled on proof of His power, His
vigilance, His love, after being protected and energized with
incredible aptness, I find myself still only too ready to grumble, nay
even to doubt. It seems as if I resented the whole business. There art
times when I feel that the amoeba, the bourgeois, and the cow
represent the ABC of enviable creatures. There may be a melancholic
strain in me, as one might expect in a case of renal weakness such as
mine. In any event, it is surely a most overwhelming proof that AIWAZ
is not myself, but my master, that He could force me to write verse 9,
at a time when I was both intellectually and spiritually disgusted
with, and despairing of, the Universe, as well as physically alarmed
about my health.
11. This compulsion was that of true inspiration. It was the Karma
of countless incarnations of struggle towards the light. There is a
sharp repulsion, physical and mental, toward any initiation, like that
towards death. The above paragraph states only a part of the truth. I
am not sure that it is not an attempt to explain away the verse, which
humiliates me. I remember clearly enough the impulse to refuse to go
on, and the fierce resentment at the refusal of my muscles to obey me.
Reflect that I was being compelled to make an abject recantation of
practically every article of my creed, and I had not even Cranmer's
excuse. I was proud of my personal prowess as a poet, hunter, and
mountaineer of admittedly dauntless virility; yet I was being treated
like a hypnotized imbecile, only worse, for I was perfectly aware of
what I was doing.
12. The use of capitals `Me' and `Thee' emphasizes that Hadit was
wholly manifested in The Beast. It is to be remembered that The Beast
has agreed to follow the instructions communicated to Him only in
order to show that `nothing would happen if you broke all the rules.'
Poor fool! The Way of Mastery is to break all the rules -- but you
have to know them perfectly before you can do this; otherwise you are
not in a position to transcend them. Aiwaz here explains that his
power over me depended upon the fact that Hadit is verily `the core of
every star.' As is well known, there is a limit to the power of the
hypnotist; he cannot overcome the resistance of the Unconscious of his
patient. My own Unconscious was thus in alliance with Aiwaz; taken
between two fires, my conscious self was paralyzed so long as the
pressure lasted. It will be seen later -- verses 61 to 69 -- that my
consciousness was ultimately invaded by the Secret Self, and
surrendered unconditionally, so that, it proclaimed, loudly and
gladly, from its citadel, the victory of its rightful Lord. The
mystery is indeed this, that in so prosperous and joyous a city, there
should still be groups of malcontents whose grumblings are
occasionally audible.
E-Mail Fredric L. Rice / The Skeptic Tank