The Vision and the Voice

2

The Cry of the 29th Aethyr

RII[1]

1
The sky appears covered with stars of gold; the background is of green. But the impression is also of darkness.
2
An immense eagle-angel is before me. His wings seem to hide all the Heaven.[2]
3
He cried aloud saying: The Voice of the Lord upon the Waters: the Terror of God upon Mankind. The voice of the Lord maketh the Skies to tremble: the Stars are troubled: the Aires fall. The First Voice Speaketh and saith: Cursed, cursed be the Earth, for her iniquity is great. Oh Lord! Let Thy Mercy be lost in the great Deep! Open thine eyes of Flame and Light, O God, upon the wicked! Lighten thine Eyes! The Clamour of Thy Voice, let it smite down the Mountains!
4
Let us not see it! Cover we our eyes, lest we see the End of Man. Close we our ears, lest we hear the cry of Woman. Let none speak of it: let none write it: I, I am troubled, my eyes are moist with dews of terror: surely the Bitterness of Death is past.
5

And I turned me to the South and lo! a great lion as wounded and perplexed.[3]

6
He cried: I have conquered! Let the Sons of Earth keep silence; for my Name is become as That of Death!
7
When will men learn the Mysteries of Creation?
8

How much more those of the Dissolution (and the Pang of Fire)?

9
I turned me to the West and there was a great Bull;[4] White with horns of White and Black and Gold. His mouth was scarlet and his eyes as Sapphire stones. With a great sword he shore the skies asunder, and amid the silver flashes of the steel grew lightnings and deep clouds of Indigo.
10
He spake: It is finished! My mother hath unveiled herself!
11
My sister hath violated herself! The life of things hath disclosed its Mystery.
12
The work of the Moon is done! Motion is ended for ever!
13
Clipped are the eagle's wings: but my Shoulders have not lost their strength.
14
I heard a Great Voice from above crying: Thou liest! For the Volatile hath indeed fixed itself; but it hath arisen above thy sight. The World is desert: but the Abodes of the House of my Father are peopled; and His Throne is crusted over with white Brilliant Stars, a lustre of bright gems.
15
In the North is a Man upon a Great Horse, having a Scourge and Balances[5] in his hand (or a long spear glitters at his back or in his hand). He is clothed in black velvet and his face is stern and terrible.
16
He spake saying: I have judged! It is the end: the gate of the beginning. Look in the Beneath and thou shalt see a new world!
17
I looked and saw a great abyss and a dark funnel of whirling waters or fixed airs, wherein were cities and monsters and trees and atoms and mountains and little flames (being souls) and all the material of an universe.
18
And all are sucked down one by one, as necessity hath ordained. For below is a glittering jewelled globe of gold and azure, set in a World of Stars.[6]
19
And there came a Voice from the Abyss, saying: "Thou seest the Current of Destiny! Canst thou change one atom in its path? I am Destiny. Dost thou think to control me? for who can move my course?"
20
And there falleth a thunderbolt therein: a catastrophe of explosion: and all is shattered. And I saw above me a Vast Arm reach down, dark and terrible, and a voice cried: I AM ETERNITY.
21

And a great mingled cry arose: "No! no! no! All is changed; all is confounded; naught is ordered: the white is stained with blood: the black is kissed of the Christ! Return! Return! It is a new chaos that thou findest here: chaos for thee: for us it is the skeleton of a New Truth!"

22
I said: Tell me this truth: for I have conjured ye by the Mighty Names of God, the which ye cannot but obey.
23
The voice said:
24
Light is consumed as a child in the Womb of its Mother to develop itself anew. But pain and sorrow infinite, and darkness are invoked. For this child riseth up within his Mother and doth crucify himself within her bosom. He extendeth his arms in the arms of his Mother and the Light becometh fivefold.[7]
25

Lux in Luce,
Christus in Cruce;
Deo Duce
Sempiterno.[8]

26

And be the glory for ever and ever unto the Most High God, Amen!

27
Then I returned within my body, giving glory unto the Lord of Light and of the Darkness. In Saecula Saeculorum. Amen!
28
(On composing myself to sleep, I was shewn an extremely brilliant ד‎[9] in the Character of the Passing of the River, in an egg of white light. And I take this as the best of Omens. The letter was extremely vivid and indeed apparently physical. Almost a Dhyana.)

A NOTE[10]

Concerning the thirty Aethyrs:

The Visions of the 29th and 30th Aethyrs were given to me in Mexico in August[11] 1900, and I am now (23.11.9) trying to get the rest. It is to be remarked that the last three aethyrs have ten angels attributed to them,[12] and they therefore represent the ten Sephiroth. Yet these ten form but one, a Malkuth-pendant to the next three, and so on, each set being, as it were, absorbed in the higher. The last set consists, therefore, of the first three aethyrs with the remaining twenty-seven as their Malkuth. And the letters of the first three aethyrs are the key-sigils of the most exalted interpretation of the Sephiroth.

I is therefore Kether;

L, Chokmah and Binah;

A, Chesed;

N, Geburah;

R, Tiphereth;

Z, Netzach;

N, Hod;

O, Jesod.

The geomantic correspondences of the Enochian alphabet form a sublime commentary.

Note that the total angels of the aethyrs are 91, the numeration of Amen.

November 17, 1900, Die.

[1] RII = Pisces, Sagittarius, Sagittarius. When referred to the Hebrew Alphabet, according to the Sepher Yetzirah, you get קסס, whose numerical value is 220. This number is the number of verses in The Book of the Law, and it is this Book which brings about the disruption described in this Aethyr.

[2] In the East. The Eagle-Angel covering the heavens thus represents the immediate future, and this is dark, bewildering and terrifying.

[3] Leo. This is the Beast 666, as yet unprepared for his Work. But already (1900 era vulgarum) he was dreaded by his fellow magicians. South: Proper place of the Sun in his Strength.

[4] The Bull is Osiris or Jesus. He complains of the terrible things that are happening, especially the freedom (which he thinks shameless) of woman — a foreshadowing of the current feminist liberation movement. He does not understand the New Aeon, or that he is about to be destroyed. He is in the West, that is going into oblivion — the place of the setting sun. Note the previous references to West in the 30th Aethyr.

[5] The severest aspect of Justice, Libra. Saturn, black and stern, is exalted in Libra.

[6] Nuit — the world of the Stars. See The Equinox of the Gods for an elaboration of her place in this new Theogony.

[7] The LVX Cross hidden in the Swastika is probably the arcanum here connoted. The Swastika has 17 squares. IAO adds to 17 and, by the Golden Dawn formula, discloses LVX, the Light of the Cross. (See the Introduction to the 2nd edition of The Golden Dawn, Vol 2. This Cross on the Mars Square or Kamea adds to 65 which, according to the Sepher Sephiroth (Equinox VIII), is the number of Adonai, the Hebrew words shone or glorified = ha-Yekal = 65 Heh and Samech, a verb meaning "keep silence." Swastika itself adds to 231 = 0 + 1 + 2 + 3 + ... + 21; the 21 Tarot keys. The cubical Swastika regarded as composed of this LVX Cross and the arms has a total of 78 faces — the number of Mezla (the influence descending from Kether through the Paths to Malkuth and the Tarot cards.)

[8] This is but the beginning of a sort of hymn. It was never written down — the Seer being unable to hear it properly. These four lines are, in fact, probably incorrect — certainly incomplete. There are four more lines which he failed to hear, for fear of getting them wrong.

[9] ד in Hebrew means a door or gateway. ד is referred to Venus (the door in the vault of the Adepts in the 5° = 6□ ceremony of the Golden Dawn) as well as to the highest reciprocal Path on the Tree of Life. It separates the lower Sephiroth from the Supernals and is therefore the gate to the Highest.)

[10] This note, written before invoking the 29th Aethyr, represents a crude and imperfect view. It is retained so as to show how very inadequate was the understanding of the Seer at this time; therefore the immense superiority of the communicating Intelligences and their separate individual consciousness.

[11] Query: November? See Note 10. Some discrepancy in Crowley's recollection of when the first two visions in Mexico were obtained.

[12] See Equinox VII, pp. 242-3, now reproduced in Gems from the Equinox and in the Enochian section of Vol. 4 of The Golden Dawn.

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