Mind is a disease of semen.
All that a man is or may be is hidden therein.
Bodily functions are parts of the machine; silent, unless
in disease.
But mind, never at ease, creaketh “I”.
This I persisteth not, posteth not through generations, changeth momently, finally is dead.
Therefore is man only himself when lost to himself in
The Charioting.
COMMENTARY (Η)
Cheth is the Chariot in the Tarot. The Charioteer is the bearer of the Holy Grail. All this should be studied in Liber 418, the 12th Aethyr.
The chapter is called “Steeped Horsehair” because of the mediaeval tradition that by steeping horsehair a snake is produced, and the snake is the hieroglyphic representation of semen, particularly in Gnostic and Egyptian emblems.
The meaning of the chapter is quite clear; the whole race-consciousness, that which is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, is hidden therein.
Therefore, except in the case of an Adept, man only rises to a glimmer of the universal consciousness, while, in the orgasm, the mind is blotted out.
9
ΚΕΦΑΛΗ Θ
THE BRANKS
Being is the Noun; Form is the adjective.
Matter is the Noun; Motion is the Verb.
Wherefore hath Being clothed itself with Form?
Wherefore hath Matter manifested itself in Motion?
Answer not, O silent one! For THERE is no “wherefore”, no “because”.
The name of THAT is not known; the Pronoun interprets, that is, misinterprets, It.
Time and Space are Adverbs.
Duality begat the Conjunction.
The Conditioned is Father of the Preposition.
The Article also marketh Division; but the Interjection is the sound that endeth in the Silence.
Destroy therefore the Eight Parts of Speech; the Ninth is nigh unto Truth.
This also must be destroyed before thou enterest into The Silence.
Aum.
COMMENTARY (Θ)
Teth is the Tarot trump, Strength, in which a woman is represented closing the mouth of a lion.
This chapter is called “The Branks”, an even more powerful symbol, for it is the Scottish, and only known, apparatus for closing the mouth of a woman.
The chapter is formally an attack upon the parts of speech, the interjection, the meaningless utterance of ecstasy, being the only thing worth saying; yet even this is to be regarded as a lapse.
“Aum” represents the entering into the silence, as will observed upon pronouncing it.
10
ΚΕΦΑΛΗ Ι
WINDLESTRAWS
The Abyss of Hallucinations has Law and Reason; but in Truth there is no bond between the Toys of the Gods.
This Reason and Law is the Bond of the Great Lie.
Truth! Truth! Truth! crieth the Lord of the Abyss of Hallucinations.
There is no silence in that Abyss: for all that men call Silence is Its Speech.
This Abyss is also called “Hell”, and “The Many”. Its name is “Consciousness”, and “The Universe”, among men.
But THAT which neither is silent, nor speaks, rejoices therein.
COMMENTARY (Ι)
There is no apparent connection between the number of this chapter and its subject.
It does, however, refer to the key of the Tarot called The Hermit, which represents him as cloaked.
Jod is the concealed Phallus as opposed to Tau, the extended Phallus. This chapter should be studied in the light of what is said in “Aha!” and in the Temple of Solomon the King about the reason.
The universe is insane, the law of cause and effect is an illusion, or so it appears in the Abyss, which is thus identified with consciousness, the many, and both; but within this is a secret unity which rejoices; this unit being far beyond any conception.
11
ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΙΑ
THE GLOW-WORM
Concerning the Holy Three-in-Naught.
Nuit, Hadit, Ra-Hoor-Khuit, are only to be understood by the Master of the Temple.
They are above The Abyss, and contain all contradiction in themselves.
Below them is a seeming duality of Chaos and Babalon; these are called Father and Mother, but it is not so. They are called Brother and Sister, but it is not so. They are called Husband and Wife, but it is not so.
The reflection of All is Pan: the Night of Pan is the Annihilation of the All.
Cast down through The Abyss is the Light, the Rosy Cross, the rapture of Union that destroys, that is The Way. The Rosy Cross is the Ambassador of Pan.
How infinite is the distance form This to That! Yet All is Here and Now. Nor is there any there or Then; for all that is, what is it but a manifestation, that is, a part, that is, a falsehood, of THAT which is not?
Yet THAT which is not neither is nor is not That which is!
Identity is perfect; therefore the Law of Identity is but a lie. For there is no subject, and there is no predicate; nor is there the contradictory of either of these things.
Holy, Holy, Holy are these Truths that I utter, knowing them to be but falsehoods, broken mirrors, troubled waters; hide me, O our Lady, in Thy Womb! for I may not endure the rapture.
In this utterance of falsehood upon falsehood, whose contradictories are also false, it seems as if That which I uttered not were true.
Blessed, unutterably blessed, is this last of the illusions; let me play the man, and thrust it from me! Amen.
COMMENTARY (ΙΑ)
“The Glow-Worm” may perhaps be translated as “a little light in the darkness”, though there may be a subtle reference to the nature of that light.
Eleven is the great number of Magick, and this chapter indicates a supreme magical method; but it is really called eleven, because of Liber Legis, I, 60.
The first part of the chapter describes the universe in its highest sense, down to Tiphareth; it is the new and perfect cosmogony of Liber Legis.
Chaos and Babalon are Chokmah and Binah, but they are really one; the essential unity of the supernal Triad is here insisted upon.
Pan is a generic name, including this whole system of its manifested side. Those which are above the Abyss are therefore said to live in the Night of Pan; they are only reached by the annihilation of the All.
Thus, the Master of the Temple lives in the Night of Pan.
Now, below the Abyss, the manifested part of the Master of the Temple, also reaches Samadhi, as the way of Annihilation.
Paragraph 7 begins by a reflection produced by the preceding exposition. This reflection is immediately contradicted, the author being a Master of the Temple. He thereupon enters into his Samadhi, and he piles contradiction upon contradiction, and thus a higher degree of rapture, with every sentence, until his armoury is exhausted, and, with the word Amen, he enters the supreme state.
12
ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΙΒ
THE DRAGON-FLIES
IO is the cry of the lower as OI of the higher.
In figures they are 1001;9 in letters they are Joy.10
For when all is equilibrated, when all is beheld from without all, there is joy, joy, joy that is but one facet of a diamond, every other facet whereof is more joyful than joy itself.
COMMENTARY (ΙΒ)
The Dragon-Flies were chosen as symbols of joy, because of the author’s observation as a naturalist.
Paragraph 1 mere repeats Chapter 4 in quintessence; 1001, being 11Σ (1-13), is a symbol of the complete unity manifested as the many, for Σ (1-13) gives the whole course of numbers from the simple unity of 1 to the complex unity of 13, impregnated by the magical 11.
I may add a further comment on the number 91. 13 (1 plus 3) is a higher form of 4. 4 is Amoun, the God of gener
ation, and 13 is 1, the Phallic unity. Daleth is the Yoni. And 91 is AMN (Amen), a form of the Phallus made complete through the intervention of the Yoni. This again connects with the IO and OI of paragraph 1, and of course IO is the rapture-cry of the Greeks.
The whole chapter is, again, a comment on Liber Legis, I, 28-30.
NOTE
(9) 1001 = 11Σ. The Petals of the Sahasraracakkra.
(10) JOY = 101, the Egg of Spirit in equilibrium between the Pillars of the Temple.
13
ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΙΓ
PILGRIM-TALK
O thou that settest out upon The Path, false is the Phantom that thou seekest. When thou hast it thou shalt know all bitterness, thy teeth fixed in the Sodom-Apple.
Thus hast thou been lured along That Path, whose terror else had driven thee far away.
O thou that stridest upon the middle of The Path, no phantoms mock thee. For the stride’s sake thou stridest.
Thus art thou lured along That Path, whose fascination else had driven thee far away.
O thou that drawest toward the End of The Path, effort is no more. Faster and faster dos thou fall; thy weariness is changed into Ineffable Rest.
For there is not Thou upon That Path: thou hast become The Way.
COMMENTARY (ΙΓ)
This chapter is perfectly clear to anyone who has studied the career of an Adept.
The Sodom-Apple is an uneatable fruit found in the desert.
14
ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΙΔ
ONION-PEELINGS
The Universe is the Practical Joke of the General at the Expense of the Particular, quoth FRATER PERDURABO, and laughed.
But those disciples nearest to him wept, seeing the Universal Sorrow.
Those next to them laughed, seeing the Universal Joke.
Below these certain disciples wept.
Then certain laughed.
Others next wept.
Others next laughed.
Next others wept.
Next others laughed.
Last came those that wept because they could not see the Joke, and those that laughed lest they should be thought not to see the Joke, and thought it safe to act like FRATER PERDURABO.
But though FRATER PERDURABO laughed openly, He also at the same time wept secretly; and in Himself He neither laughed nor wept.
Nor did He mean what He said.
COMMENTARY (ΙΔ)
The title, “Onion-Peelings”, refers to the well-known incident in Peer Gynt.
The chapter resembles strongly Dupin’s account of how he was able to win at the game of guessing odd or even. (See Poe’s tale of ‘The Purloined Letter’.) But this is a more serious piece of psychology. In one’s advance towards a comprehension of the universe, one changes radically one’s point of view; nearly always it amounts to a reversal.
This is the cause of most religious controversies. Paragraph 1, however, is Frater Perdurabo’s formulation of his perception of the Universal Joke, also described in Chapter 34. All individual existence is tragic. Perception of this fact is the essence of comedy. Household Gods is an attempt to write pure comedy. The Bacchae of Euripides is another.
At the end of the chapter it is, however, seen that to the Master of the Temple the opposite perception occurs simultaneously, and that he himself is beyond both of these.
And in the last paragraph it is shown that he realises the truth as beyond any statement of it.
15
ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΙΕ
THE GUN-BARREL
Mighty and erect is this Will of mine, this Pyramid of fire whose summit is lost in Heaven. Upon it have I burned the corpse of my desires.
Mighty and erect is this Φαλλοσ of my Will. The seed thereof is That which I have borne within me from Eternity; and it is lost within the Body of Our Lady of the Stars.
I am not I; I am but an hollow tube to bring down Fire from Heaven.
Mighty and marvellous is this Weakness, this Heaven which draweth me into Her Womb, this Dome which hideth, which absorbeth, Me.
This is The Night wherein I am lost, the Love through which I am no longer I.
COMMENTARY (ΙΕ)
The card 15 in the Tarot is “The Devil”, the mediaeval blind for Pan.
The title of the chapter refers to the Phallus, which is here identified with the will. The Greek word Πυραμισ has the same number as Φαλλοσ.
This chapter is quite clear, but one my remark in the last paragraph a reference to the nature of Samadhi.
As man loses his personality in physical love, so does the magician annihilate his divine personality in that which is beyond.
The formula of Samadhi is the same, from the lowest to the highest. The Rosy-Cross is the Universal Key. But, as one proceeds, the Cross becomes greater, until it is the Ace, the Rose, until it is the Word.
16
ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΙΣ
THE STAG-BEETLE
Death implies change and individuality if thou be THAT which hath no person, which is beyond the changing, even beyond changelessness, what hast thou to do with death?
The bird of individuality is ecstasy; so also is its death.
In love the individuality is slain; who loves not love?
Love death therefore, and long eagerly for it.
Die Daily.
COMMENTARY (ΙΣ)
This seems a comment on the previous chapter; the Stag-Beetle is a reference the Kheph-ra, the Egyptian God of Midnight, who bears the Sun through the Underworld; but it is called the Stag-Beetle to emphasise his horns. Horns are the universal hieroglyph of energy, particularly of Phallic energy.
The 16th key of the Tarot is “The Blasted Tower”. In this chapter death is regarded as a form of marriage. Modern Greek peasants, in many cases, cling to Pagan belief, and suppose that in death they are united to the Deity which they have cultivated during life. This is “a consummation devoutly to be wished” (Shakespeare).
In the last paragraph the Master urges his pupils to practise Samadhi every day.
17
ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΙΖ
THE SWAN11
There is a Swan whose name is Ecstasy: it wingeth from the Deserts of the North; it wingeth through the blue; it wingeth over the fields of rice; at its coming they push forth the green.
In all the Universe this Swan alone is motionless; it seems to move, as the Sun seems to move; such is the weakness of our sight.
O fool! criest thou?
Amen. Motion is relative: there is Nothing that is still.
Against this Swan I shot an arrow; the white breast poured forth blood. Men smote me; then, perceiving that I was but a Pure Fool, they let me pass.
Thus and not otherwise I came to the Temple of the Graal.
COMMENTARY (ΙΖ)
This Swan is Aum. The chapter is inspired by Frater P.’s memory of the wild swans he shot in the Tali-Fu.
In paragraphs 3 and 4 it is, however, recognised that even Aum is impermanent. There is no meaning in the word, stillness, so long as motion exists.
In a boundless universe, one can always take any one point, however mobile, and postulate it as a point at rest, calculating the motions of all other points relatively to it.
The penultimate paragraph shows the relations of the Adept to mankind. Their hate and contempt are necessary steps to his acquisition of sovereignty over them.
The story of the Gospel, and that of Parsifal, will occur to the mind.
NOTE
(11) This chapter must be read in connection with Wagner’s Parsifal.
18
ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΙΗ
DEWDROPS
Verily, love is death, and death is life to come.
Man returneth not again; the stream floweth not uphill; the old life is no more; there is a new life that is not his.
Yet th
at life is of his very essence; it is more He than all that he calls He.
In the silence of a dewdrop is every tendency of his soul, and of his mind, and of his body; it is the Quintessence and the Elixir of his being. Therein are the forces that made him and his father and his father’s father before him.
This is the Dew of Immortality.
Let this go free, even as It will; thou art not its master, but the vehicle of It.
COMMENTARY (ΙΗ)
The 18th key of the Tarot refers to the Moon, which was supposed to shed dew. The appropriateness of the chapter title is obvious.
The chapter must be read in connection with Chapters 1 and 16.
In the penultimate paragraph, Vindu is identified with Amrita, and in the last paragraph the disciple is charged to let it have its own way. It has a will of its own, which is more in accordance with the Cosmic Will, than that of the man who is its guardian and servant.
19
ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΙΘ
THE LEOPARD AND THE DEER
The spots of the leopard are the sunlight in the glade; pursue thou the deer stealthily at thy pleasure.
The dappling of the deer is the sunlight in the glade; concealed from the leopard do thou feed at thy pleasure.
Resemble all that surroundeth thee; yet be Thyself – and take thy pleasure among the living.
This is that which is written – Lurk! – in The Book of The Law.
COMMENTARY (ΙΘ)
19 is the last Trump, “The Sun”, which is the representative of god in the Macrocosm, as the Phallus is in the Microcosm.
Diary of a Drug Fiend Page 69