The Vision and the Voice

The Cry of the 27th Aethyr

ZAA[1]

There is an angel with rainbow wings, and his dress is green[2] with silver, a green veil[3] over silver[4] armour. Flames of many-coloured fire dart from him in all directions. It is a woman of some thirty years old, and she has the moon for a crest, and the moon is blazoned on her heart, and her sandals are curved silver, like the moon.

And she cries: Lonely am I and cold in the wilderness of the stars.[5] For I am the queen of all them that dwell in Heaven, and the queen of all them that are pure upon earth, and the queen of all the sorcerers of hell.[6]

I am the daughter of Nuit, the lady of the stars. And I am the Bride of them that are vowed unto loneliness.[7] And I am the mother of the Dog Cerberus.[8] One person am I, and three gods.[9]

And thou who hast blasphemed me shalt suffer knowing me. For I am cold as thou art cold, and burn with thy fire.[10] Oh, when shall the war of the Aires and the elements be accomplished?[11]

Radiant are these falchions of my brothers, invisibly about me, but the might of the aethyrs beneath my feet beareth me down. And they avail not to sever the Kamailos.[12] There is one in green armour, with green eyes, whose sword is of vegetable fire.[13] That shall avail me. My son is he,[14] — and how shall I bear him that have not known man?

All this time intolerable rays are shooting forth to beat me back or destroy me; but I am encased in an egg of blue-violet, and my form is the form of a man with the head of a golden hawk.[15] While I have been observing this, the goddess has kept up a continuous wail, like the baying of a thousand hounds;[16] and now her voice is deep and guttural and hoarse, and she breathes very rapidly words that I cannot hear. I can hear some of them now.

UNTU LA LA ULULA UMUNA TOFA LAMA LE LI NA AHR IMA TAHARA ELULA ETFOMA UNUNA ARPETI ULU ULU ULU MARABAN ULULU MAHATA ULU ULU LAMASTANA.[17]

And then her voice rises to a shriek, and there is a cauldron[18] boiling in front of her; and the flames under the cauldron are like unto zinc flames,[19] and in the cauldron is the Rose, the Rose of 49 petals,[20] seething in it. Over the cauldron she has arched her rainbow wings; and her face is bent over the cauldron, and she is blowing opalescent silvery rings on to the Rose; and each ring as it touches the water bursts into flame, and the Rose takes new colours.[21]

And now she lifts her head, and raises her hands to heaven, and cries: O Mother,[22] wilt thou never have compassion on the children of earth? Was it not enough that the Rose should be red with the blood of thine heart,[23] and that its petals should be by 7 and by 7?

She is weeping, weeping.[24] And the tears grow and fill the whole stone with moons.[25] I can see nothing and hear nothing for the tears, though she keeps on praying. "Take of these pearls,[26] treasure them in thine heart. Is not the Kingdom of the Abyss accurst?" She points downward to the cauldron; and now in it there is the head of a most cruel dragon,[27] black and corrupted. I watch, and watch; and nothing happens.

And now the dragon rises out of the cauldron, very long and slim (like Japanese Dragons, but infinitely more terrible), and he blots out the whole sphere of the stone.[28]

Then suddenly all is gone, and there is nothing in the stone save brilliant white light and flecks like sparks of golden fire; and there is a ringing, as if bells were being used for anvils. And there is a perfume which I cannot describe; it is like nothing that one can describe, but the suggestion is like lignum aloes.[29] And now all these things are there at once in the same place and time.[30]

Now a veil of olive and silver[31] is drawn over the stone, only I hear the voice of the angel[32] receding, very sweet and faint and sorrowful, saying: Far off and lonely in the secret stone is the unknown, and interpenetrated is the knowledge with the will and the understanding. I am alone. I am lost, because I am all and in all; and my veil is woven of the green earth and the web of stars. I love; and I am denied, for I have denied myself. Give me those hands, put them against my heart. Is it not cold? Sink, sink, the abyss of time remains. It is not possible that one should come to ZAA. Give me thy face. Let me kiss it with my cold kisses. Ah! Ah! Ah! Fall back from me. The word, the word of the aeon is MAKHASHANAH.[33] And these words shalt thou say backwards: ARARNAY OBOLO MAHARNA TUTULU NOM LAHARA EN NEDIEZO LO SAD FONUSA SOBANA ARANA BINUF LA LA LA ARPAZNA UOHULU[34] when thou wilt call my burden unto appearance, for I who am the Virgin goddess am the pregnant goddess, and I have cast down my burden even unto the borders of the universe.[35] They that blaspheme me are stoned, and my veil[36] is fallen about me even unto the end of time.[37]

Now there arises a great raging of thousands and thousands of mighty warriors flashing through the aethyr so thickly that nothing is to be seen but their swords, which are like blue-gray plumes. And the noise is confused, thousands of battle-cries harmonizing to a roar, like the roar of a monstrous river in flood. And all the stone is dull, dull gray. The life is gone from it.[38]

There is no more to see.

Sidi Aissa, Algeria.

November 24, 1909, 8-9 p.m.

[1] ZAA = Leo, Taurus, Taurus. (One might at first have thought that Caput was intended for the Z, since Leo has already been attributed elsewhere. But as soon as the transliteration is made by Crowley to Teth, we know Leo is meant, not Caput Draconis.) These transliterated are Teth, Vau, Vau = 21. A mystery of the Tarot Trump XVIII — the Moon, attributed to Pisces, in which Venus is exalted.

[2] Possibly the traditional green of the huntress.

[3] Color of Venus.

[4] The green of Venus is perhaps the natural veil of Luna, her external show. (Silver is Luna in Queen Scale.)

[5] For Luna is Virgin, and the Path of Gimel, the Moon, crosses the wilderness of the Abyss.

[6] Diana Trivia is thus described. She is the High Priestess and the Lady of Heaven. She is the virgin goddess of pure love; and she is also Hecate, the waning Moon, presiding over witchcraft. (See Crowley's notes concerning Venus and Luna on page 63 of the second revised edition of Liber 777.)

[7] Virgo — the Tarot Trump IX — the Hermit. (Virgo is opposite Pisces in the Zodiac.)

[8] The Jackals of the Atu XVIII — the Moon.

[9] Luna = ג‎ = 3. Cerberus has three heads.

[10] For Luna is the sensorium; she reflects man's spiritual state in terms of sensuous experiences.

[11] That is, when shall the coefficients of the circle and the square be commensurable. When means through what mode of resolution? Or, on what plane?

[12] Camelos (Greek) = a camel, referred to ג in Hebrew. Kamailos (Greek) = a rope. ג is therefore likened to a rope, a three-fold (ג being 3) cord linking Kether and Tiphareth on the Tree of Life.

[13] The Angel of ד — Venus, who is green, and ד avails Venus, crossing it on the Tree by joining Chokmah and Binah. That is, the love of these Supernals balances the isolation of the Virgin Moon.

[14] Luna in 20° Pisces at the nativity of 666.

[15] Which means, I assume the god-form of Horus, Sol in the womb of the night-sky blue of Binah, who is the mother of all stars and thus is potent against Hecate.

[16] The hounds that follow Hecate. The jackals of Atu XVIII — the Moon.

[17] The Lunar language. "Ye hounds! Ho! Ho! Tally-ho! Scent the poison of the path. Here! There! Bark! Sweep around! There goes the quarry down the glade of mossy rock. The foremost has caught him! Tally-ho! Tally-ho! The hunt is ended." ULU = Hail plus come — very nearly Ahoy!

[18] The witches' cauldron.

[19] Ultra violet color of Pisces.

[20] All this paragraph refers to Atu XIV — Art = Sagittarius, for she is now in her huntress form. Hence the Alchemical and rainbow symbolism.

[21] She appeals to Binah, the highest form of Luna.

[22] She appeals to Binah, the highest form of Luna.

[23] This is the use to which Babalon puts the blood of the Masters of the Temple (see 12th Aethyr) to vivify the rose of universal creation; i.e., the attainment of the Master of the Temple fills the world with life and beauty. Hecate does not understand this, or else she regards it as hostile to her own formula.

[24] Water of Pisces.

[25] She can produce nothing but images of herself.

[26] Pearls represent the Masters of the Temple secreted by Binah around the specks of dust which they have become upon crossing the Abyss. (Specs of dust — the remains of the abnegated ego.)

[27] A veil or mask of Khephra (in Atu XVIII — the Moon).

[28] All Hecate can see of the Great Work of 8° = 3^□ is the Black Brotherhood; i.e., the failure of that work.

[29] Sagittarius (Atu XIV — Art) again. The phenomena are the experiences of the attained Master of the Temple.

[30] The attainment has destroyed the conditions of physical manifestation.

[31] Olive colour = Water in Malkuth (Queen Scale), also Water in the Emperor Scale. Silver is Luna in Queen Scale.

[32] Hecate now aspires to Binah, accepts the formula of love (kisses) surrenders her nature (fall back, etc.) and so finds the Word.

[33] MAKHASHANAH = מאכאשאנה, a word of eight letters is necessary to perform the Great Work on one whose formula is 3: 8° = 3^□. The Seer knew that this word was not the correct word which is ABRAHADABRA = 418. But on writing it down in Hebrew, as above, he saw that it was the correct word after all. Observe that this proves the angel to have been an Intelligence not of the Seer's conscious mind. Had the Angel given the word which the Seer knew, it might have been derived from his subconscious self. Furthermore, this word contains more than the mere 418 because of its 8 letters, suiting the special formula required by this particular Angel, whereas the other word is a general formula, being of 11 letters, all Magick being referred to 11. So far as ABRAHADABRA is specialized, it refers to the work of 5° = 6^□, there being five Alephs and 6 other letters. In the Latin script also, MAKHASHANAH does have 11 leters. Again the operation of the cauldron (above) is described by the five consonants of this word, as follows (all vowels being omitted) :

מ = Water
כ = Wheel of Fortune (Rose) on the Tarot
ש = Fire
נ = Scorpio
ה = Binah (the first ה of Tetragrammaton; the final ה referring of course to Malkuth)

[34] Translation: "Hither, O Holy One … whose burden pulls at thy spine. Ho! Ho! Ho! The two-headed God (Janus) ploughs thy back, sows habitations upon thy back, thou many-phallused queen … of princely loves … which are all sodomies … so that the holy ones laugh and shake with laughter … while the lords of mischief … spend upon thee … TUTULU (this word cannot be translated. See Liber VII.) Down bounces from thy back … the merry mad foetus-faces … an emission … Gather ye sun-roses, sun-roses, gather ye from the split backside of the virgin (Earth)."

[35] The word of the Master has gone forth into every part of the world. Therefore it is always possible to call him forth to one's assistance by the proper use of the above formula.

[36] Symbol of Binah.

[37] Symbol of Binah.

[38] Many of these visions end in some way unconnected with the substance of the Aethyr. One must not look for coherence in such places. They are merely episodes on the return journey, useful to break the shock. Analogy: one might see a taxi accident while returning to one's house from the theatre. The spectacle need have no connection with either the play or one's home life.