220A2-4.ASC I note that Laotze makes no attempt to announce A Tao which is truly free from
220A2-4.ASC
I note that Laotze makes no attempt to announce A Tao
which is truly free from Teh. Teh is the necessary quality of
Tao, even though Tao, withdrawing Teh into itself, seems to
ignore the fact. The only pause I make is this, that mine own
Holy Guardian Angel, Aiwaz, whose crown is Thelema, whose
robe Agape, whose body the Lost Word that He declared to me,
spake in Book Seven and Twenty, saying: `Here is Nothing
under its three forms.' Can there then be not only Nothing
Manifested, Teh or Two, a Nothing Unmanifested, Tao or
Naught, but also a Nothing Absolute? But there is nothing
incompatible with the terms of this verse. 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, form
Gautama to James Thomson. 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.31).
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.
28. This is against these Intellectuals aforesaid. There
are no `standards of Right.' Ethics is balderdash. Each Star
must go on its orbit. To hell with `moral Principle;' there
is no such thing; that is a herd-delusion, and makes men
cattle. Do not listen to the rational explanation of How
Right It All Is, in the newspapers. 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 term.
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 any two things appears as
causal. Even should we declare it to be causal, our minds
would still insist that causality 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 out 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.
29. Distrust any explanation whatever. Disraeli said:
Never sak 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. 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. This 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. 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 you
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. The `factor infinite and unknown' is the subconscious
Will. `On with the revel!' `Their words' -- the plausible
humbug of the newspapers and the churches. Forget it! Allons!
Marchons! 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 so 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, 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?
Experiment proves nothing; it is surely obvious that we are
obliged to correlate all observations with the physical and
mental structure whose truth we are trying to test. Indeed,
we can assume an `unreasonable' axiom, and translate the
whole of our knowledge into its terms, without fear of
stumbling over any obstacle. Reason is no more than a set or
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. Let me illustrate. I see a
drop of water. Distrusting my eyes, I put it under the
microscope. Still in doubt, I photograph and enlarge the
slide. I compare my results with those of others. I check
them by cultivating the germs in the water, and injecting
them into paupers. But I have learnt nothing at all about
`the infinite and unknown,' merely producing all sorts of
different impressions according to the conditions in which
one observes it! More yet, all the instruments used have
been tested and declared `true' on the evidence of those very
eyes distrust of which drove me to the research. Modern
Science has at last grown out of the very-young-man
cocksureness of the 19th century. It is now admitted that
axioms themselves depend on definitions, and that Intuitive
Certainty is simply one trait of homo sapiens, like the ears
of the ass or the slime of the slug. That we reason as we do
merely proves that we cannot reason otherwise. We cannot move
the upper jaw; it does not follow that the idea of motion is
ridiculous. The limitation hints rather that there may be an
infinite variety of structures which the jaw cannot imagine.
The metric system is not the necessary mode of measurement.
It is the mark of a mind untrained to take its own processes
as valid for all men, and its own judgments for absolute
truth. Our two eyes see an object in two aspects, and present
to our consciousness a third which agrees with neither, is
indeed, strictly speaking, not sensible to sight, but to
touch! Our senses declare some things at rest and others in
motion; our reason corrects the error, firstly by denying
that anything can exist unless it is in motion, secondly by
denying that absolute motion possesses any meaning at all.
At the time when this Book was written, official Science
angrily scouted the `factor infinite and unknown,' and clung
with pathetic faith to the idea that reason was the
touchstone of truth. In a single sentence, Aiwaz anticipates
the discoveries by which the greatest minds now incarnate
have made the last ten years memorable.
33. This is the only way to deal with reason. Reason is
like a woman; if you listen, you are lost; with a thick
stick, you have some sort of sporting chance. Reason leads
the philosopher to self-contradiction, the statesman to
doctrinaire follies; it makes the warrior lay down his arms,
and the lover cease to rave. What is so unreasonable as man?
The only Because in the lover's litany is Because I love you.
We want to skeleton syllogisms at our symposium of souls.
Philosophically, `Because is absurd.' There is no answer to
the question `Why.' The greatest thinkers have been sceptics
or agnostics: `omnia exeunt in mysterium,' and `summa
scientia nihil scire' are old commonplaces. In my essays
`Truth' (in Konx Om Pax), `The Soldier and the Hunchback,'
`Eleusis' and others, I have offered a detailed demonstration
of the self-contradictory nature of Reason. The cruz of the
whole proof may be summarized by saying that any possible
proposition must be equally true with its contradictory, as,
if not, the universe would no longer be in equilibrium. It is
no objection that to accept this is to destroy conventional
Logic, for that is exactly what it is intended to do. I may
also mention briefly one line of analysis. I ask `What is
(e.g.) a tree?' The dictionary defines this simple idea by
means of many complex ideas; obviously one gets in deeper
with every stroke one takes. The same applies to any `Why'
that may be posed. The one existing mystery disappears as a
consequence of innumerable antecedents, each equally
mysterious. To ask questions is thus evidently worse than a
waste of time, so far as one is looking for an answer. There
is also the point that any proposition S is P merely includes
P in the connotation of S, and is therefore not really a
statement of relation between two things, but an amendment of
the definition of one of them. `Some cats are black' only
means that our idea of a cat involves the liability to appear
black, and that blackness is consistent with those sets of
impressions which we recognize as characteristic of cats. All
ratiocination may be reduced to syllogistic form; hence, the
sole effect of the process is to make each term more complex.
Reason does not add to our knowledge; a filing system does
not increase one's correspondence directly, though by
arranging it one gets a better grasp of one's business. Thus
coordination of our impressions should help us to control
them; but to allow reason to rule us is as abject as to
expect the exactitude of our ledgers to enable us to dispense
with initiative on the one hand and actual transactions on
the other.
34. We are not to calculate, to argue, to criticise; these
things lead to division of will and to stagnation. They are
shackles of our Going. They hamstring our Pegasus. We are to
rise up -- to Go -- to Love -- we are to be awake, alert --
`Joyous and eager, Our tresses adorning, O let us beleaguer
the City of Morning!' The Secret of Magick is to `enflame
oneself in praying.' This is the ready test of a Star, that
it whirls flaming through the sky. You cannot mistake it for
an Old Maid objecting to Everything. This Universe is a wild
revel of atoms, men, and stars, each one a Soul of Light and
Mirth, horsed on Eternity. Observe that we must `rise up'
befor we `awake!' Aspiration to the Higher is a dream -- a
wish-fulfilment which remains a phantasm to wheedle us away
from seeking reality -- unless we follow it up by Action.
Only then do we become fully aware of ourselves, and enter
into right reaction with the world in which we live.
35. A ritual is not a melancholy formality; it is a
Sacrament, a Dance, a Commemoration of the Universe. The
Universe is endless rapture, wild and unconfined, a mad
passion of speed. Astronomers tell us this of the Great
Republic of the Stars; physicists say the same of the Little
Republic of Molecules. Shall not the Middle Republic of Men
be like unto them? The polite ethicist demurs; his ideal is
funereal solemnity. His horizon is bounded by death; and his
spy-glass is smeared with the idea of sin. The New Aeon
proclaims Man as Immortal God, eternally active to do His
Will. All's Joy, all's Beauty; this Will we celebrate. In
this verse we see how the awakening leads to ordered and
purposeful action. Joy and Beauty are the evidence that our
functions are free and fit; when we take no pleasure, and
find nothing to admire, in our work, we are doing it wrong.
36. Each element -- fire, earth, air, water, and Spirit --
possesses its own Nature, Will, and Magical Formula. Each one
may then have its appropriate ritual. Many such in crude form
are described in The Golden Bough of Dr. J.G. Frazer, the
Glory of Trinity! In particular the entry of the Sun into
the cardinal signs of the elements at the Equinoxes and
Solstices are suitable for festivals. The difference between
`rituals' and `feasts' is this: by the one a particular form
of energy is generated, while there is a general discharge of
one's superfluous force in the other. Yet a feast implies
periodical nourishment.
37. There should be a special feast on the 12th day of
August in every year, since it was the marriage of The Beast
which made possible the revelation of the New Law. (This is
not an Apology for Marriage. Hard Cases make Bad Law).
38. This is April 8th, 9th, and 10th, the feast beginning
at High Noon.
39. This particular feast is of a character suited only to
initiates.
40. The Supreme Ritual is the Invocation of Horus, which
brought about the Opening of the New Aeon. The date is March
20. The Equinox of the Gods is the term used to describe the
Beginning of a New Aeon, or a New Magical Formula. It should
be celebrated at every Equinox, in the manner known to
Neophytes of the A.A.
41. The feasts of fire and water indicate rejoicings to be
made at the puberty of boys and girls respectively. The
feast for life is at a birth; and the feast for death at a
death. It is of the utmost importance to make funerals merry,
so as to train people to take the proper view of death. The
fear of death is one of the great weapons of tyrants, as well
as their scourge; and it distorts our whole outlook upon the
Universe.
42. To him who realizes Hadit this text needs little
comment. It is wondrous, this joy of awakening every morning
to the truth of one's immortal energy and rapture.
43. To sleep is to return, in a sense, to the Bosom of
Nuit. But there is to be a particular Act of Worship of Our
Lady, as ye well wot.
44. Do not be afraid of `going the pace'. It is better to
wear out than to rust out. You are unconquerable, and of
indefatigable energy. Great men find time for everything,
shirk nothing, make reputations in half a dozen different
lines, have twenty simultaneous love affairs, and live to a
green old age. The milksops and valetudinarians never get
anywhere; usually they die early; and even if they lived for
ever, what's the use? The body is itself a restriction as
well as an instrument. When death is as complete as it should
be, the individual expands and fulfils himself in all
directions; it is an omniform Samadhi. This is of course
`eternal ecstasy' in the sense already explained. But in the
time-world Karma reconcentrates the elements, and a new
incarnation occurs.
45. The prigs, the prudes, the Christians, die in a real
sense of the word; for although even they are `Stars', there
is not enough body to them (as it were) to carry on the
individuality. There is no basis for the magical memory if
one's incarnation holds nothing worth remembering. Count your
years by your wounds -- forsitan haec clim meminisse juvabit.
In regard ot this question of death I quote from Liber Aleph
-- De Morte. Thou hast made Question of me concerning Death,
and this is mine Opinion, of which I say not: This is the
Truth. First in the Temple called Man is the God, his Soul,
or Star, individual and eternal, but also inherent in the
Body of Our Lady Nuith. Now this Soul, as an Officer in the
High Mass of the Cosmos, taketh on the vesture of his Office,
that is, inhabiteth a Tabernacle of Illusion, a Body and
Mind. And this Tabernacle is subject to the Law of Change,
for it is complex, and diffuse, reacting to every Stimulus or
Impression. If then the Mind be attached constantly to the
Body, Death hath not Power to decompose it wholly, but a
decaying Shell of the Dead Man, his Mind holding together for
a little his Body of Light, haunteth the Earth, seeking a new
Tabernacle (in its Error, that feareth Change) in some other
Body. These Shells are broken away utterly from the Star that
did enlighten them, and they are Vampires, obsessing that
that adventure themselves into the Astral World, without
Magical Protection, or invoke them, as do the Spiritists. For
by Death is Man released only from the Gross Body, at the
first, and is complete otherwise upon the Astral Plane, as he
was in his Life. But this Wholeness suffereth Stress, and its
Girders are loosened, the weaker first, and after that the
stronger. De Adeptis R.C. Eschatologia. Consider now in
this Light what shall come to the Adept, to him that hath
aspired constantly and firmly to his Star, attuning his Mind
unto the Musick of its Will. In him, if his Mind be knit
perfectly together in itself, and conjoined with the Star, is
so strong a Confection that it breaketh away easily not only
from the Gross Body, but the Fine. It is this Fine Body which
bindeth it to the Astral, as did the Gross to the Material
World; so then it accomplisheth willingly the Sacrament of a
Second Death, and leaveth the Body of Light. But the Mind,
cleaving closely by Right of its Harmony, and Might of its
Love, to its Star, resisteth the Ministers of Disruption, for
a Season, according to its Strength. Now, if this Star be of
those that are bound by the Great Oath, incarnating without
Remission because of Delight in the Cosmic Sacrament, it
seeketh a new Vehicle in the Appointed Way, and indwelleth
the Foetus of a Child, and quickeneth it. And if at this Time
the Mind of its Former Tabernacle yet cling to it, then is
there Continuity of Character, and it may be Memory, between
the Two Vehicles. This is, briefly and without Elaboration,
the Way of Asar in Amennti, according to mine Opinion, of
which I say not: this is the Truth. De Nuptiis summis. Now
then to this Doctrine, o my Son, add thou that which thou
hast learned in the Book of the Law, that Death is the
Dissolution in the Kiss of Our Lady Nuith. This is a true
Consonance as of Bass with Treble; for here is the Impulse
that setteth us to Magick, the Pain of the Conscious Mind.
Having then Wit to find the Cause of this Pain in the Sense
of Separation, and its Cessation by the Union of Love, it is
the Summit of Our Holy Art to present the whole Engine in
true and real appurtenance of our Force, without Leak, or
Friction, or any other Waste or Hindrance to its Action. Thou
knowest well how an Horse, or even a Machine propelled by a
Man's Feet, becometh as it were an Extension of the Rider,
through his Skill and Custom. Thus let thy Star have Profit
of thy Vehicle, assimilating it, and sustaining it, so that
it be healed of its Separation, and this even in Life, but
most especially in Death. Also thou oughtest to increase thy
Vehicle in Mass by true Growth in Balance, that thou be a
Bridegroom comely and well- favoured, a man of Might, and a
Warrior worthy of the Bed of so divine a Dissolution.
E-Mail Fredric L. Rice / The Skeptic Tank