The Vision and the Voice

[2] The Exempt Adept must be freed from all attachment.

[3] The aspirant is reminded by this vision of the horror which is always ready to take the place of a True Magical Operation. Coruptio optimi pessima. [The worst corrupts the best.]

[4] This warning is given directly.

[5] It is repeated in detail.

[6] The number of the letters of Shemhamphorash, the "Divided Name", i.e., Tetragrammaton in detail. Also, 72 = עב‎, the "Secret Nature" of Atziluth, the archetypal world of pure reality.

[7] The cone is a figure of Iacchus, Lord of the Highest Ecstasy. It is the Phallus. Its mathematical implications are many and important. In particular, its relations with the Great Pyramid of Cheops yield remarkable correspondences.

[8] πυραμισ = 831.

[9] Similarly, the Hexagram is attributed to the Seven Planets; for the Centre contains Sol.

[10] Compare this whole geometrical symbolism with that given in the Ritual of Adeptus Minor.

[11] Compare, in external nature, the appearance of the blue sky.

[12] This very strange phenomenon is perhaps quite inadequately described. It is a general condition of most spiritual experience that the familiar laws of nature do not obtain in their accustomed forms. It is only when experience enables one to observe them with detachment that they are seen to be as uniform, simple and exact as those of normal physics.

[14] There is a fleeting image of the horror of the Abyss; as a mountaineer, leaping a bergschrund, obtains a momentary glimpse of the terrors beneath his airy path. Cf. 10th Aethyr for these images of madness.

[15] This quotation is from Liber VII, I, v. 40. (This book describes in detail the whole attainment of the grade of Magister Templi. It had been given to the Seer, years previously but he had not understood it, even with his Neshamah, as a coherent entity. Nor does he even yet (An XXI, Sun in Cancer) understand it with his Ruach. Incidentally the full meaning of this book "418" (The Vision and the Voice) as a connected account of his initiation, is only now becoming clear to him in the process of writing this commentary upon it. For N.O.X., see 20th Aethyr, Note 14. Observe that although the Exempt Adept, or the Babe of the Abyss, is completely baffled by the circumstances, and in no wise understands the situation, his Chiah, the Magician in him, acts with sublime confidence and correctness. (For Liber VII see The Holy Books)

[16] The quotation, accepting annihilation, instantly destroys the myriad of insane images which hastened to occupy the vacuum created by the leap of the Exempt Adept into the Abyss. Had he faltered, he would have become — against his will — a "black brother". But this being involuntary, he would not have attempted to maintain his coherence, as the black brothers do. He would therefore have been destroyed at once; that is, to outward appearance he would have become a demented babbler. Spiritists present this phenomenon, on a much lower plane, and in a diluted form; though, with them as with the average Theosophist, there is usually a certain degree of obsession by pet phantoms — a "Chinese Guide," or "Koot Hoomi," or what not — to lend a species of semi-organized structure to the legions of disconnected ideas that throng their disintegrated gray matter.

[17] (No Angel has been mentioned. The Seer was lost to being.) In this preliminary — and so to say, symbolic — crossing of the Abyss, His Holy Guardian Angel comes to the rescue of the aspirant. Contrast the unspeakable Terror of the actual crossing, when that Angel Himself abandons the Seer (see 11th Aethyr, the last paragraph.) Exactly how the Angel dealt with the Seer in this 20 minutes of earthly time is impossible to say; for he has no memory soever — nor had he even at the time — of what took place. We may, however, deduce from that fact that the Communion took place in a sphere beyond even Neschamah. It may well have been a quintessence of union sufficiently intimate to have identified the Seer with his Angel so perfectly as to have given him the right to make the passage fully, in every sense; and to have ensured his safety on the way. For the Angel cometh forth from above the Abyss, and dwelleth of right in the bosom of the Great Mother. But the Angel deals not with the little pile of dust in the City of the Pyramids, (see 14th Aethyr) but with the Star that is cast forth to give light to the Earth.

[18] This pyramid, where is the Pastos, is the chamber of annihilation. The Pastos contains the essence of the Aspirant, and is in a Chamber containing the essence of the universe. This is all ready to be burnt up in the energy of aspiration to the creative annihilation, the ruby pyramid of phallus. Finally, this pyramid is within a cone, a figure combining the straight line and the circle (rose and cross in their purest form) representing the new universe into which the old is to be transmuted. It is established, like all types of universe, upon the four elements (divided into 72) which are the conditions of manifested existence. (The elements are not only material; they include categories like time, space and causality.)

[19] This is the birth-chamber, where the Magister Templi awakes from the oblivion of the Abyss.

[20] These sacraments furnish him with the material of his new Life. Bread (Earth) is labour, the nourishment of his being. Fire is the perception of clear understanding (Neschamah). The Rose (Air) is Sin, the restriction which prevents him from being dissolved in pure light (Kether) for his oath as a Master of the Temple is to deny himself the enjoyment of that privilege; wherefore is that sin fragrant with the sent of love. Finally, Wine (Water) is death, the ecstasy of transmuting all things into joy by the sacrament of creative love.

[22] The Seer's first impulse was to proceed with the Work on which he had been engaged when the Dissolution of his Being took place.

[23] As stated in a previous Aire, these higher visions are not to be obtained by the methods applicable to less exalted spheres.

[24] See the Book of the Dead, as adopted for modern use by the authorities of the Golden Dawn.

[25] He must be a neophyte to have access to the Ritual of Passing Through the Tuat.

[26] See Liber AL vel Legis I. v. 51. The general idea is to create true appetite in a body purified by fasting and a mind clarified by meditation, so as to make certain of being perfectly intoxicated. It should be needless to say that this state of mind, like all others, should be absolutely willed, criticized and controlled.

[27] The Aethyrs pertain to an order of nature, sui generis. Though they possess many correspondences with the 32 Paths of Wisdom, all of these must be impartially banished; otherwise the vacuum would be disturbed by an unequilibrated symbol sympathetic with the Aethyr to be invoked, which would flood the circle, and prevent the Aethyr arising in its perfect plenitude.

[28] This injunction has several obvious magical advantages. The symbolic gesture is to consume the matter of the operation in the spirit thereof.

[29] This is by no means a gesture of supplication, the vile attitude of the unmanly devotee of the slave-gods. It has a specific and positive practical purpose, which should be easy for the Neophyte to divine if his Zelator have well and wisely so instructed him.

[31] This injunction is to be taken very seriously. I have known uninitiates made ill by the shock of seeing Adepts of too high residual charge; worse, thrown off their moral balance.

[32] Presumably Sir Edward Kelly. There is certainly no hint of the sublimity and profundity of such visions as the present series in the working of that adept.

[33] This peroration suggests that early working by its style. It has little definite thought contained in it; the sublimity of the language ill conceals its vagueness. Nevertheless, it is a fitting conclusion to the mystery of this Aethyr. The ritual, and its lyrical outburst, were doubtless necessary to let the seer down gently from the colossal exaltation of the central event of the Aethyr.