220A2-2.ASC 13. Hadit had to overcome the silly `knower,' who thought everything was Sorro
220A2-2.ASC
13. Hadit had to overcome the silly `knower,' who thought
everything was Sorrow. Cf. `Who am I?' -- `Thou knowest' in
Chapter I. I am far from satisfied with either of the above
interpretations of this verse. We shall see a little later,
verses 27 - xx, a general objection to `Because' and `why.'
Then how is it that Hadit does not disdain to use those
terms? It must be for the sake of my mind. Then, `for why' is
detestably vulgar; and no straining of grammar excuses or
explains the `me.' We have two alternatives. The verse may
be an insult to me. My memory tells me, however, that the
tone of the voice of Aiwaz was at this point low, even, and
musical. It sounded like a confidential, almost deferential,
clarification of the previous verse, which had rung out with
joyful crescendo. The alternative is that the verse contains
some Qabalistic proof of the authority of Aiwaz to lay down
the law in so autocratic a manner. Just so, one might add
weight to one's quotation from Sappho, in the English, by
following it up with the original Greek. The absence of all
capital letters favours this theory. Such explanation, if
discovered, will be given in the Appendix. However, simply
enough, the solution begins with the idea that the small
initial of `because' would be explained by a colon preceding
it instead of a note of interrogation, which may have been
due to my haste, ignorance, and carelessness. Then `for why'
may be understood: `for the benefit of this Mr. Why -- to
satisfy your childish clamour for a reason -- I will now
repeat my remarks in an alternative form such that even your
stupidity can scarcely fail to observe that I have sealed my
psychological explanation in cipher.' We find accordingly
that the arising `of Me in Thee' constitutes a state wherein
`thou knewest not.' By `knewest' we may understand the
function of Hadit, intellectually and conjugally united with
Nuit. (See Book 4, Part III, for GN, the root meaning both
`to know' and `to beget'). And `not' is Nuit, as in Cap. I.
Now this idea explains that the arising `of Me (Hadit) in
Thee (The Beast)' is the fulfilment of the Magical Formula of
Hadit and Nuit. And to know Nuit is the very definition of
`joy.' The next verse confirms this: `thou (the Beast) wast
the knower (Hadit) and (united with) me (Nuit, as in Cap.I.,
verse 51 & others).' Finally, Nuit is indicated by two
different symbols `not' (Gk OU) and `me' (Gk MH). Now OU MH
was my Motto in the Grade of Adeptus Exemptus; Aiwaz thus
subtly reminds me that I was pledged to deny the assertions
of my intellectual and moral consciousness. He combines in
these few words (a) a correct psychological explanation of
the situation, (b) a correct magical explanation of that
explanation, (c) a personal rebuke to which I had no possible
reply, involving a knowledge of my own mental state which was
superior to my own. These two verses are sufficient in
themselves to demonstrate the praeter-human qualities of the
Author of this Book.
14. 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.
15. See Appendix.
16. See Appendix.
17. The dead and the dying, who know not Hadit, are in the
Illusion of Sorrow. Not being Hadit, they are shadows,
puppets, and what happens to them does not matter. If you
insist upon identifying yourself with Hecuba, your tears are
natural enough. There is no contradiction here, by the way,
with verses 4 and 5. The words `know me' are used loosely as
is natural in a stanza; or, more likely, are used (as in the
English Bible) to suggest the root GN, identity in
transcendental ecstasy. Possibly `not' and `me' are once more
intended to apply to Nuit. With `know' itself, they may be
`Nothing under its three forms' of negativity, action, and
individuality.
18. 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.
19. 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.
20. As soon as one realizes one's self as Hadit, one
obtains all His qualities. It is all a question of doing
one's Will. A flaming harlot, with red cap and sparkling
eyes, her foot on the neck of a dead king, is just as much a
star as her predecessor, simpering in his arms. But one must
be a flaming harlot -- one must let oneself go, whether one's
star be twin with that of Shelly, or of Blake, or of Titian,
or of Beethoven. Beauty and strength come from doing one's
Will; you have only to look at any one who is doing it to
recognize the glory of it.
21. There is a good deal of the Nietzschean standpoint in
this verse. It is the evolutionary and natural view. Of what
use is it to perpetuate the misery of Tuberculosis, and such
diseases, as we now do? Nature's way is to weed out the weak.
This is the most merciful way, too. At present all the strong
are being damaged, and their progress hindered by the dead
weight of the weak limbs and the missing limbs, the diseased
limbs and the atrophied limbs. The Christians to the Lions!
Our humanitarianism, which is the syphilis of the mind, acts
on the basis of the lie that the King must die. The King is
beyond death; it is merely a pool where he dips for
refreshment. We must therefore go back to Spartan ideas of
education; and the worst enemies of humanity are those who
wish, under the pretext of compassion, to continue its ills
through the generations. The Christians to the Lions! Let
weak and wry productions go back into the melting-pot, as is
done with flawed steel castings. Death will purge,
reincarnation make whole, these errors and abortions. Nature
herself may be trusted to do this, if only we will leave her
alone. But what of those who, physically fitted to live, are
tainted with rottenness of soul, cancerous with the
sin-complex? For the third time I answer: The Christians to
the Lions! Hadith calls himself the Star, the Star being the
Unit of the Macrocosm; and the Snake, the Snake being the
symbol of Going or Love, and the Chariot of Life. He is
Harpocrates, the Dwarf- Soul, the Spermatozoon of all Life,
as one may phrase it. The Sun, etc., are the external
manifestations or Vestures of this Soul, as a Man is the
Garment of an actual Spermatozoon, the Tree sprung of that
Seed, with power to multiply and to perpetuate that
particular Nature, though without necessary consciousness of
what is happening. In a deeper sense, the word `Death' is
meaningless apart from the presentation of the Universe as
conditioned by `Time.' But what is the meaning of Time?
There is great confusion of thought in the use of the word
`eternal,' and the phrase `for ever.' People who want
`eternal happiness' mean by that a cycle of varying events
all effective in stimulating pleasant sensations; i.e., they
want time to continue exactly as it does with themselves
released from the contingencies of accidents such as poverty,
sickness and death. An eternal state is however a possible
experience, if one interprets the term sensibly. One can
kindle flamman aeternae caritatis,' for instance; one can
experience a love which is in truth eternal. Such love must
have no relation with phenomena whose condition is time.
Similarly, one's `immortal soul' is a different kind of thing
altogether from one's mortal vesture. This Soul is a
particular Star, with its own peculiar qualities, of course;
but these qualities are all `eternal,' and part of the nature
of the Soul. This Soul being a monistic consciousness, it is
unable to appreciate itself and its qualities, as explainedin
a previous entry; so it realizes itself by the device of
duality, with the limitations of time, space and causality.
The `Happiness' of Wedded Love or eating Marrons Glaces is a
concrete external non-eternal expression of the corresponding
abstract internal eternal idea, just as any triangle is one
partial and imperfect picture of the idea of a triangle. (It
does not matter whether we consider `Triangle' as an unreal
thing invented for the convenience of including all actual
triangles, or vice versa. Once the idea Triangle has arisen,
actual triangles are related to it as above stated). One does
not want even a comparatively brief extension of these
`actual' states; Wedded Love though licensed for a lifetime,
is usually intolerable after a month; and Marrons Glaces pall
after the first five or six kilogrammes have been consumed.
But the `Happiness,' eternal and formless, is not less
enjoyable because these forms of it cease to give pleasure.
What happens is that the Idea ceases to find its image in
those particular images; it begins to notice the limitations,
which are not itself and indeed deny itself, as soon as its
original joy in its success at having become conscious of
itself wears off. It becomes aware of the external
imperfection of Marrons Glaces; they no longer represent its
infinitely varied nature. It therefore rejects them, and
creates a new form of itself, such as Nightgowns with pale
yellow ribbons or Amber Cigarettes. In the same way a poet
or painter, wishing to express Beauty, is impelled to choose
a particular form; with luck, this is at first able to
recompense in him what he feels; but sooner or later he finds
that he has failed to include certain elements of himself,
and he must needs embody these in a new poem or picture. He
may know that he can never do more than present a part of the
possible perfection, and that in imperfect imagery; but at
least he may utter his utmost within the limits of the mental
and sensory instruments of his similarly inadequate symbol of
the Absolute, his vehicle of human incarnation. These suffer
from the same defects as the other forms; ultimately,
`Happiness' wearies itself in the effort to invent fresh
images, and becomes disheartened and doubtful of itself. Only
a few people have wit enough to proceed to generalization
from the failure of a few familiar figures of itself, and
recognize that all `actual' forms are imperfect; but such
people are apt to turn with disgust from the whole procedure,
and to long for the `eternal' state. This state is however
incapable of realization, as we know; and the Soul
understanding this, can find no good but in `Cessation' of
all things, its creations no more than its own tendencies to
create. It therefore sighs for Nibbana. But there is one
other solution, as I have endeavoured to shew. We may accept
(what after all it is absurd to accuse and oppose) the
essential character of existence. We cannot extirpate or even
alter in the minutest degree either the matter or manner of
any element of the Universe, here each item is equally
inherent and important, each aequipollent, independent, and
interdependent. We may thus acquiesce in the fact that it is
apodeictically implicit in the Absolute to apprehend itself
by self-expression as Positive and Negative in the first
place, and to combine these primary opposites in an infinite
variety of finite forms. We may thus cease either (1) to
seek the Absolute in any of its images, knowing that we must
abstract every one of their qualities from every one of these
equally if we would unveil it; or (2) to reject all images of
the Absolute, knowing that attainment thereof would be the
signal for the manifestation of that part of its nature which
necessarily formulates itself in a new universe of images.
Realizing that these two courses (the materialist's and the
mystic's) are equally fatuous, we may engage in either or
both of two other plans of action, based on assent to
actuality. We may (1) ascertain our own particular
properties as partial projections of the Absolute; we may
allow every image presented to us to be of equally intrinsic
and essential entity with ourselves, and its presentation to
us a phenomenon necessary in Nature; and we may adjust our
apprehension to the actuality that every event is an item in
the account which we render to ourselves of our own estate.
We dare not desire to omit any single entry, lest the balance
be upset. We may react with elasticity and indifference to
each occurrence, intent only on the idea that the total,
intelligently appreciated, constitutes a perfect knowledge
not indeed of the Absolute but of that part thereof which is
ourselves. We thus adjust one imperfection accurately to
another, and remain contented in the appreciation of the
righteousness of the relation. This path, the `Way of the
Tao,' is perfectly proper to all men. It does not attempt
either to transcend or to tamper with Truth; it is loyal to
its own laws,and therefore no less perfect than any other
Truth. The Equation Five plus Six is Eleven is of the same
order of perfection as Ten Million times Ten times Ten
Thousand Million is One Billion. In the Universe fomulated by
the Absolute, every point is equally the Centre; every point
is equally the focus of the forces of the whole. (In any
system of three points, any two may be considered solely with
reference to the third, so that even in a finite universe the
sum of the properties of all points is the same, though no
two properties may be common to any two points. Thus a
circle, BCD, may be described by the revolution of a line AB
in a plane about the point A; but also from the point C, or
indeed any other point, by the application of the proper
analysis and construction. We calculate the motion of the
solar system in heliocentric terms for no reason but
simplicity and convenience; we could convert our tables to a
geocentric basis by mere mechanical manipulation without
affecting their truth, which is only the truth of the
relations between a number of bodies. All are alike in
motion, but we have arbitrarily chosen to consider one of
them as stationary, so that we may more easily describe the
movements of the others in regard to it, without complicating
our calculations by introduction of the movements of the
whole system as such. And for this purpose the Sun is a more
convenient standard than the Earth). There is another Way
that we may take, if we will; I say `another,' though it
seems perhaps to some no more than development of the other
which happens to be proper to some people. Even in the first
Way, it is of all things necessary to begin by exploring
one's own Nature, so as to discover what its peculiarities
are; this is accomplished partly by introspection, but
principally by Right Recollection of the whole phantasmagoria
presented to it by experience; for since every event of life
is a symbol of part of the structure of the Soul, the
totality of experience must by the `Name' if the whole of
that part of the Soul which has so far uttered itself. Now
then, let us suppose that some Soul, having penetrated thus
far, should discover in its `Name' that it is a Son truly
begotten by the Spirit of Being upon the Body of Form, and
that it has power to understand itself and its Father, with
all that such heirship implies. Suppose further that it be
come to puberty, will it not be impelled to assert itself as
its Father's son? Will it not shake itself free from the Form
that bore and nourished and trained it, and turn from its
brothers and sisters and playmates? Will it not glow and ache
with the impulse to be utterly itself, and find a Form fit to
impress with its image, even as did its Father aforetime? If
such a Soul be indeed its Father's son, he will not fear to
show lack of filial reverence, or presumption, if he forget
its family in the fervour of founding one of his own, of
begetting boys not better or braver indeed than his brothers,
girls not softer or sweeter indeed than his sisters, but
wholly his own, with his own defects and desires evoked by
enchantment of ecstasy when he dies to himself in the womb of
the witch who lusts for his life, and buys it with the coin
that bears his Image and Superscription. Such is the secret
of the Soul of the Artist. He knows that he is a God, of the
Sons of God; he has no fear or shame in showing himself of
the seed of his Father. He is proud of that Father's most
precious privilege, and he honours him no less than himself
by using it. He accepts his family as of his own royal stock;
every one is as princely as he is himself. But he were not
his Father's son unless he found for himself a Form fit to
express himself by multiplex reproductions of his Image. He
must admire himself in many costumes, each emphatic of some
elected elegance or excellence in himself which would
otherwise elude his homage by being hidden and hushed in the
harmony of his heart. This Form which shall serve him must be
softness' self to his impress, with exact elasticity adapting
itself to the strongest and subtlest salients, yet like steel
to resist all other stress than his own, and to retain and
reproduce surely and sharply the image that his acid bites
into its surface. There must be no flaw, no irregularity, no
granulation, no warp in its substance; it must be smooth and
shining, pure metal of true temper. And he must love this
chosen Form, love it with fearful fervour; it is the face of
his Fate that craves his kiss, and in her eyes Enigma blazes
and smoulders; she is his death, her body his coffin where he
may rot and stink, or writhe in damned dreams, self-slain, or
rise in incorruption self-renewed, immortal and identical,
fulfilling himself wholly in and by her, splashing all space
with sparkling stars his sons and daughters, each star an
image of his own infinity made manifest, mood after mood, by
her magick to mould him when his passion makes molten her
metal. Thus then must every Artist work. First, he must find
himself. Next, he must find the form that is fitted to
express himself. Next, he must love that form, as a form,
adoring it, understanding it, and mastering it, with most
minute attention, until it (as it seems) adapts itself to him
with eager elasticity, and answers accurately and aptly, with
the unconscious automatism of an organ perfected by
evolution, to his most subtlest suggestion, to his most giant
gesture. Next, he must give himself utterly up to that Form;
he must annihilate himself absolutely in every act of love,
labouring day and night to lose himself in lust for it, so
that he leave no atom unconsumed in the furnace of their
frenzy, as did of old his Father that begat him. He must
realize himself wholly in the integration of the infinite
Pantheon of images; for if he fail to formulate one facet of
himself, by lack thereof will he know himself falsely.
There is of course no ultimate difference between the Artist
as here delineated and him who follows the `Way of the Tao',
though the latter finds perfection in his existing relation
with his environment, and the former creates a private
perfection of a peculiar and secondary character. We might
call one the son, the other the daughter, of the Absolute.
But the Artist, though his Work, the images of himself in the
Form that he loves, is less perfect than the Work of his
Father, since he can but express one particular point of view
and that by means of one type of technique, is not to be
thought useless on that account, any more than an Atlas is
useless because it presents by means of certain crude
conventions a fraction of the facts of geography. The Artist
calls our attention away from Nature, whose immensity
bewilders us so that she seems incoherent, and
unintelligible, to his own interpretation of himself, and his
relations with various phenomena of nature expressed in a
language more or less common to us all. The smaller the
Artist, the narrower his view, the more vulgar his
vocabulary, the more familiar his figures, the more readily
is he recognized as a guide. To be accepted and admired, he
must say what we all know, but have not told each other till
it is tedious, and say it in simple and clear language, a
little more emphatically and eloquently than we have been
accustomed to hear; and he must please and flatter us in the
telling by soothing our fears and stimulating our hopes and
our self- esteem. When an Artist -- whether in Astronomy,
like Copernicus, Anthropology, like Ibsen, or Anatomy, like
Darwin -- selects a set of facts too large, too recondite, or
too `regrettable' to receive instant assent from everybody;
when he presents conclusions which conflict with popular
credence or prejudice; when he employs a language which is
not generally intelligible to all; in such cases he must be
content to appeal to the few. He must wait for the world to
awake to the value of his work. The greater he is, the more
individual and the less intelligible he will appear to be,
although in reality he is more universal and more simple than
anybody. He must be indifferent to anything but his own
integrity in the realization and imagination of himself.
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