Predicting The Present

by Daniel Kelley

  Crowley concludes:

  "Dissolve the Pearl in the Wine cup: drink, and make manifest the Virtue of that Pearl".

  We encountered this exhortation in The Chariot, did we not? In that trump we were told to "TRINC!" (Drink!) We were also informed about the "Two in One conveyed."

  It's as though The star goddess herself, Nuith, is pouring from the blue chalice her celestial water, filling your vase (body) here in the Art card. You must use this energy in a manner suitable to that honor. Sink to the silent bottom of your being (Cauldron/Yesod) and see the beauty of the turbulent surface (Lust). In this state you’ll work and play (The Universe).

  Any act done with all your heart is an act done rightly. The Thelemic maxim, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law, Love is the law, Love under Will", points to this truth. When you give something or someone your full attention you're actually blessing it, him or her. If you give total attention to your body, or if someone else gives total attention to your body, then your body becomes more vibrant. This is also true of negative attention. If you hate something totally, the scorned object will actually shrink to some degree. If you project hatred upon your body, for example, it can manifest itself as psychosomatic illness. So it follows that attention is a form of food. You are, by attending to something totally, imbuing it with whatever attitude you have as you attend. This means that if you look upon your body with compassion, reverence and love, you're actually changing the very cells themselves. This is alchemy, pure and simple! And we see this transformation symbolized by the snakes occupying the green dress of the central figure in the card. Similarly, if you look upon the contents of your psyche with compassionate acceptance and alertness of mind, you'll actually transform the brain cells themselves.

  Try it and see!

  It’s well known that infants can actually die from lack of love. Whether you provide them with food and milk won’t matter. Take away all love and there’s every chance that the infant will perish. The same has been seen of animals. This is why mystics of all times and places have stated that hatred is actually love turned upside down. When you love somebody your attention is completely wrapped up in that person. The same is the case with hatred. When you hate someone you can think of nothing else, but it's obvious that the effects of love upon a person, place, or thing, will differ dramatically from the effects of hatred. When Crowley says, "Love under Will", he's not talking about the type of love that's mixed with hate. Rather, he's referring to a consciousness beyond both.

  This is the mystery of the Rose and Cross (see Glossary).

  To truly appreciate the symbol of the Rose and Cross one must actually feel what it represents. The Cross symbolizes the bodymind: your thoughts, feelings, and intimations. The Rose represents the peace that arises from the harmony of the four Elements (Cross) within your bodymind; the Rose is Health. When there's no longer any conflict within you the Rose as health, peace, joy, and equanimity, grows from the center toward the periphery of your being. A partial opening of this Rose, say, the petal of physical health, results in a sense of well-being and a calm delight. The opening of the petal of the mind gives reason, creativity, clarity of thought, and the absence of neuroses. The petal of the heart is love, and so forth.

  When all of these are functioning in harmony you’ll feel a deep sense of unity with existence.

  We see this interpretation of the Rose and Cross in The Sun trump and, elsewhere in that card, the joy of the rose’s unfolding in the image of the twin children dancing. But there’s deeper interpretation of the Rose and Cross: the discovery of the deathless, which is a mystery hidden in The Sun and The Universe cards. In the former interpretation of elemental and physical wholeness, Art gives birth to The Sun. Whereas in the latter interpretation of spiritual immortality, The Aeon heralds the rising of The Sun (birth of the Holy Embryo). The Universe, then, is the space in which The Sun rises. For a rose to bloom fully it must be tended to by a sensitive gardener. He must check to see that it's getting enough sun, or too much sun. He must turn the soil and water the plant. The same is true for the Rose of Being. The Cross, which is your body, is the garden being referred to here. The Rose is the Eros of your being. With all things functioning smoothly, it's easier to perceive that which exists beyond name and form, beyond the body.

  The spiritual ordeal symbolized by Art is unveiled in The Moon card, but where the latter card merely recalls the ego's horrifying encounter with Shadow (The Devil), Art embodies intimate contact with it NOW. For example, you might allow a repressed bit of Shadow to emerge into awareness and indulge it. Or conversely, you might become aware of Shadow and explain it away with a systematic denial.

  But there's a third option…

  Just as you can become immune to snake venom by regularly ingesting small amounts of it, so too can you become immune to the bite of Shadow by re-owning it. This can be a painful process of reclaiming, not only your projected flaws and virtues, but also renaming them. For example, it's not that Sarah is the most talented, tenacious, and virtuous person that Chris has ever met, but rather, Chris thinks himself to be boring, weak, and vicious. So, by actively riding the wave of projection at the moment those virtues are projected onto Sarah, Chris can consciously land (or crash) onto the shore whereupon lives the true source of those virtues: himself. Even if Sarah does in fact possess the virtues projected upon her by Chris, it's far less significant than the worthlessness that Chris cleverly (but unconsciously) avoids by placing Sarah on a pedestal.

  Art gives birth to The Sun and, as the saying goes: the brighter the light the darker the shadow. The goddess Artemis stirs the cauldron of the unconscious, and in the process disturbs a hornet's nest of repressions. These repressions, when integrated, become increasingly atomic, as we've elsewhere discussed. This "solar” nature has been with you from the very beginning, even in the darkest of nights, only you didn't recognize it. You didn't recognize it because you were looking for it elsewhere.

  If you summon Shadow, it will come.

  With the kiss of your consciousness you’ll awaken, not the Princess, but the many-headed beast that guards her! Each ugly head that appears conflicts with the image you’ve established about yourself. You've always thought yourself to be a kind person? You might find within yourself malice and hatred. What you think will oftentimes become you, but to simply think about something isn't such a big deal; to obsess about something is! Remember:

  The only way something can be provoked in you is if it's already there awaiting provocation.

  Psychoanalysts want you to believe that Shadow can be traced back to some biographical alpha point, such as your mother. But I think it can be traced back even further, to your mother's mother, her great grandparents, their parents too, and possibly back to the first human being. We're standing on their shoulders, you know? You must literally take on the sins of your DNA and become your own messiah. So when some psychoanalyst tells you that your malice is present because your mother didn't hold you enough as a child, he's actually doing you harm. He's providing you with a screen upon which to project something that’s been with you from birth; and when given a screen upon which to project, the mind will obsess over the screen and forget about what’s being projected!

  It's like this:

  A virgin walking through an enchanted forest stumbles upon a river in which is reflected scenes of unimaginable carnal lust, which, being virgin, she cannot see the danger of. So the virgin, wishing to take a swim, tests the waters' temperature with her littlest toe and is swept away forever, never to be seen again.

  It isn't unlike getting lost in a television program, experiencing all the emotions of a real-life encounter, forgetting that it's merely a featureless wave transmitted through an electronic medium. Such is the nature of Shadow. We commonly imagine Shadow to be the embodiment of all we would turn away from in disgust. This is only half the truth. Shadow is also the repository of all that we feel we should turn away from in disgust, but secretly wish to do anywa
y!

  So our real interest is not how to control Shadow, but to understand it. We must gaze upon the face of The Devil with the very eye of God. This means that every conceivable taboo must be evoked and danced with in the shrine of your bodymind. This is the true meaning of the axioms: "An it harm none, do as thou wilt", and also, "Do what thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law, Love is the Law, Love under Will." A man can become a saint or a serial killer in a given moment; the two are at all times equidistant. The religious man, the moralist, has an easy way. He chooses the right and castrates the left but true wisdom, true depth, comes with a deep confrontation with both; not by choosing one over the other. You choose according to the pattern in which you were raised, and even if you rebel against that pattern you're still reacting to it and are therefore still within its clutches.

  So it's by confronting your Shadow that you become the source of something new upon the earth and break away from the limitations of heredity. This isn't accomplished by supplanting vice with virtue. It isn't even accomplished through meditation. As far as I can see, there’s but one injunction:

  Be sensitive, compassionate, and alert, and then do what thou wilt.

  And keep silent about it! Keep all encounters with Shadow between you and your Holy Guardian Angel. It's nobody else's business! Not your wife, your friends, your co-workers, your priest or therapist. The only good advice, as far as I can see, is that which assures you that advice is futile. Advice becomes valuable only for the mind that thinks in terms of good and bad, whereas for the mind that seeks to go beyond duality advice as such is bad. To listen to advice is fine, but to listen to it unquestioningly is harmful. Simply listen to what's there and be sensitive. If malice is there, let it be there fully. Feel the irresistible desire to lash out, to kill, to fuck, to feel self-pity, and so forth, but don't react to or think about it. The thinker is weaker than Shadow. In fact, the thinker serves Shadow! It's a good servant too because it convinces you that it's your friend. It isn't. It takes great courage to admit, "I am the Devil." It takes even greater courage to be intelligent enough to see beyond the Devil, to the Angel within.

  The Devil:

  The Lord of the Gates of Matter

  The Child of the Forces of Time

  Trump #15

  Zodiacal Trump of Capricorn

  Saturn Rules—Mars Exalted

  Path: #26 (Tiphareth to Hod) (Numerical value: 70.)

  Letter: Ayin (eye)

  Helpful Quotes:

  "With thy right eye create all for thyself, and with the left accept all that be created otherwise!"

  -Aleister Crowley

  "God comes down to earth to found a religion, and the Devil comes right after him and organizes it."

  -Vivekanada

  "The other is hell."

  -Jean-Paul Sartre

  “That the Devil is called the ‘Child of the Forces of Time’ is significant in that the word ‘devil’ when spelled backwards, becomes ‘lived.’ He lives up to his reputation in this regard, for all desire is born of Time. We experience something in the present, it becomes the past [lived], and we immediately project it into the future as something to repeat or avoid based almost exclusively on the principles of pleasure and pain.”

  -Anonymous

  Contemplation

  There's a three-step magickal technique used for banishing unwanted aspects of the psyche, called the I.O.B. method. The I stands for identify; the O stands for objectify; and the B stands for banish. In this technique, the practitioner builds a mental image that personifies whatever quality she wishes to be rid of---greed, for example---and this image can be anything from a hideous monster to one's mother-in law. Then, through various visualizations and incantations, she banishes the "thought form" from her psyche.

  I'm opening our discussion of the fifteenth trump with this technique because it illustrates perfectly the modus operandi of The Devil card. Allow me to explain:

  From the very first step this technique has started you down the wrong path. Identify? That's exactly the problem for most of us! We identify with something with half our heart and with the other half we dissociate from it as much as possible. Approaching any part of yourself like this and you become like a man who's choking himself because he dislikes the taste of the air; but without air, redolent or repulsive, you'll die.

  This applies anything within you that you'd rather not admit belongs to you. Greed is a part of you: air that tastes bad, but a part of you nonetheless.

  To objectify is also a wrong step. The word "objectify" is just a clever way of dissociating from unsavory features of your personality (Shadow). Once this becomes a habit you'll project your nasties onto everything and everyone else. When you dissociate from something you're split into two parts. You're no longer a unity. Of course enthusiasts of the I.O.B. method argue that you can't know anything unless you first project it, for if you don't project it then you can't reflect upon it. But who and where is this entity that's trying to understand what it's looking at, in this case greed? Isn't it the part of you that's been taught that greed is evil? Furthermore, this thing that you don't like to see is you! You're not separate from what you're trying to divorce, and even if you do succeed at disposing of greed you'll have to replace it with something else because the ego can't live in a vacuum. You'll probably replace greed with non-greed, but what's changed? Now you're greedy for the virtue of non-greed, and the virtue won't be real. Rather, it’ll be manufactured.

  The last step in then I.O.B. technique is to banish the unwanted characteristic, which is just a clever way of saying, "suppress this!" But you can't banish your own energies. You can't cut out your left eye just because it's looked at something which you've been training your right eye not to see.

  Says Mephistopheles (Faust):

  "You are only aware of the one instinct, you never get to know the other."

  Those angels you'd invoke aren't separate from the demons you'd banish. They’re two sides of the same coin. Just as there are angels that represent love, chastity, honesty, and the like, so too are there demons that represent hatred, lasciviousness, and deceit. But you don't have to perform any complex ceremony to invoke them; they're already inside you, figuratively speaking. You need only become aware of them and, having become aware, absorb them back into your organic unity.

  Only an integrated consciousness can perceive the voices of the gods. Only a pure heart can be found worthy to house a goddess. To remain fragmented is to be unfit, is to live at too many addresses at once; the gods won't know where to find you! Furthermore, who’d want to live in a dilapidated house? Would you? What would happen if the owner of a house kept throwing garbage into the basement, refusing to clean it on the premise that basements are evil? The house would become infested!

  But this is what's happening to most of us…

  So when you come into contact with The Devil inside you, don't react and don't suppress. Instead, remain with it. The Devil can be your best guru if you've got guts. Even if it threatens to overwhelm you, allow it. Incidentally, the fear of being overwhelmed is the nature of the Greek god, Pan—hence the term "panic"—to whom this card is attributed. The moment you look at the demon itself, without recourse to the taboo it's associated with, you'll find that the form has disappeared. Bodiless they exist, neither good nor evil. By withdrawing the form (the label) you’ll be withdrawing the blood upon which they've been feeding. Only then can you see the root of greed, the root of fear, and the root of violence. The root is your identification. The root is your projection.

  It's the energy you give to denial that feeds the forbidden fruit.

  This card, The Devil, has been the object of so much misunderstanding that I almost feel sympathy for the Devil. In fact, the Devil's burden seems to be worse than that of Christ's. At least the Crucifixion was only a matter of hours---Christ had all the sins of mankind placed upon him only temporarily---the Devil, on the other hand, has been carrying it for centuries! I don't believe in the Dev
il, but if he does exist then he must have taken his first and only vacation right around the time of Christ's crucifixion. He must’ve been glad that somebody else had taken on the sins of the world for a change. I don't think that Christ is Satan's enemy at all. If the Devil is Christ's enemy, that's another story, but vice versa? I can't see how. Besides, if the Devil is in any way evil he can't be blamed for it. After all, he's God's creation, isn't he? People go on saying that the Devil is the author of evil, but it doesn’t' make any sense to me. If the Devil is, at the same time, the author of evil and God's own creation, it stands to reason that the author of evil is God himself.

  Let's look a little deeper into what it is the Devil represents:

  The Devil represents all that mankind believes to be evil and immoral. But there's no universally accepted notion of what constitutes "immoral" behavior. There are only generalizations, and an unpardonable sin in one culture may be an indispensable virtue in others. In the not-to-distant past, for example, it was common practice for a man of forty to wed a girl of only fifteen years; a practice that would, in modern times, earn you the title of "sex-offender." Many Eskimos practice polygamy, and the trading of spouses is looked upon as a social courtesy. One doesn’t have to look too far into the Bible to learn what God thinks of all this!

  Yes, evil exists…

  But if it exists in others then it exists in you also. Furthermore, the question of evil isn’t just a social one, and the individual must first become mature enough to embrace the issue well before he translates it into sociocentric terms. It's a question that we all must ask of ourselves, not just of other people. This is so because even those who go on preaching against your evil are themselves evil or contributing in some way to it. The only thing that one can do is wake up from the sleep that's allowing it to exist. This is a difficult thing because it's easier to go with gravity than to rise above it. Someone's inner animal is a bit tamer than someone else's inner animal, but an animal is an animal; even if you dress it up as a saint.