The Vision and the Voice

The Cry of the 23rd Aethyr

TOR[1]

In the brightness of the stone are three lights, brighter than all, which revolve ceaselessly.[2] And now there is a spider's web of silver[3] covering the whole of the stone. Behind the spider's web is a star of twelve rays;[4] and behind that again, a black bull, furiously pawing up the ground. The flames from his mouth increase and whirl, and he cries: Behold the mystery of toil, O thou who art taken in the toils of mystery.[5] For I who trample the earth thereby make whirlpools in the air; be comforted, therefore, for though I be black, in the roof of my mouth is the sign of the Beetle.[6] Bent are the backs of my brethren, yet shall they gore the lion with their horns. Have I not the wings of the eagle, and the face of the man?

And now he is turned into one of those winged Assyrian bull-men.

And he sayeth: The spade of the husbandman is the sceptre of the king.[7] All the heavens beneath me, they serve me. They are my fields and my gardens and my orchards and my pastures.

Glory be unto thee, who didst set thy feet in the North;[8] whose forehead is pierced with the sharp points of the diamonds in thy crown;[9] whose heart is pierced with the spear of thine own fecundity.[10]

Thou art an egg of blackness, and a worm of poison. But thou hast formulated thy father, and made fertile thy mother.

Thou art the basilisk whose gaze turns men to stone, and the cockatrice at the breast of an harlot that giveth death for milk. Thou art the asp that has stolen into the cradle of the babe. Glory unto thee, who art twined about the world as the vine that clingeth to the bare body of a bacchanal.[11]

Also, though I be planted so firmly upon the earth, yet is my blood wine and my breath fire of madness. With these wings, though they be but little, I lift myself above the crown of the yod,[12] and being without fins I yet swim in the inviolate fountain.[13]

I disport myself in the ruins of Eden, even as Leviathan in the false sea,[14] being whole as the rose at the crown of the cross.[15] Come ye unto me, my children, and be glad. At the end of labour is the power of labour.[16] And in my stability is concentrated eternal change.[17]

For the whirlings of the universe are but the course of the blood in my heart. And the unspeakable variety thereof is but my divers hairs, and plumes, and gems in my tall crown. The change which ye lament is the life of my rejoicing, and the sorrow that blackeneth your hearts is the myriad deaths by which I am renewed. And the instability which maketh ye to fear, is the little waverings of balance by which I am assured.[18]

And now the veil of silver tissue-stuff closes over him, and above that, a purple veil, and above that, a golden veil, so that now the whole stone is like a thick mat of woven gold wires; and there come forth, one from each side of the stone, two women, and grasp each other by both hands, and kiss, and melt into one another; and melt away.[19] And now the veils open again, the gold parts, and the purple parts, and the silver parts, and there is a crowned eagle, also like the Assyrian eagles.

And he cries: All my strength and stability are turned to the use of flight.[20] For though my wings are of fine gold, yet my heart is the heart of a scorpion.[21]

Glory unto thee, who being born in a stable didst make thee mirth of the filth thereof, who didst suck in iniquity from the breast of thy mother the harlot; who didst flood with iniquity the bodies of thy concubines.

Thou didst lie in the filth of the streets with the dogs; thou wast tumbled and shameless and wanton in a place where four roads meet. There wast thou defiled, and there wast thou slain, and there wast thou left to rot. The charred stake was thrust through thy bowels, and thy parts were cut off and thrust into thy mouth for derision.[22]

All my unity is dissolved; I live in the tips of my feathers.[23] That which I think to be myself is but infinite number.[24] Glory unto the Rose and the Cross, for the Cross is extended unto the uttermost end beyond space and time and being and knowledge and delight! Glory unto the Rose that is the minute point of its center! Even as we say; glory unto the Rose that is Nuit the circumference of all, and glory unto the Cross that is the heart of the Rose![25]

Therefore do I cry aloud, and my scream is the treble as the bellowing of the bull is the bass.[26] Peace in the highest and peace in the lowest and peace in the midst thereof! Peace in the eight quarters, peace in the ten points of the Pentagram! Peace in the twelve rays of the seal of Solomon, and peace in the four and thirty whirlings of the hammer of Thor![27] Behold! I blaze upon thee. (The eagle is gone; it is only a flaming Rosy Cross of white brilliance.) I catch thee up into rapture. FALUTLI, FALUTLI![28]

… O it dies, it dies.

Bou Sâada.

November 28, 1909. 9.30-10.15 A.M.

[1] TOR = Leo, Libra, Pisces = Teth, Lamed, Qoph = 139.

[2] The three Gunas — Sattvas, Rajas, Tamas. This is an introit to the Aethyr. As we proceed, we find more and more obstacles to entering.

[3] More introit; veils to the true vision.

[4] Tamas, Kerub of Earth. He and the Eagle of Air make up the four officers of the new temple. (I presume this to mean here that the three Gunas or qualities plus the Eagle of Air make four.)

[5] A warning to the Seer not to allow himself to ignore or despise the plain facts of life. Mysteries — nay, even the Mysteries themselves — are apt to seduce the aspirant. He becomes exalté (as the cold rational French, observing these errors, call him) instead of exalted.

[6] The tradition of the bull Apis. The Beetle is the Midnight Sun, the hidden hope of Earth.

[7] The King rules by virtue of the labour of his people. Even Taurus (Earth) is necessary as the support of Heaven. Nuit is upheld by Shu, who stands on Seb. Neglect to understand this causes many pure mystics to fail lamentably. They go off their base, in the significant slang of commonsense folk.

[8] The Bull is stationed in the North.

[9] The Bull is sacred to Osiris. This refers to the Crown of Thorns.

[10] Again a reference to the formula of Osiris. The spear (the sacred lance, phallus) pierces the heart of the Dying God.

[11] These two paragraphs declare the identity of the Bull with his Zodiacal opposite, Scorpio.

[12] The crown of Yod (as a Path on the Tree of Life) is Chesed. It leads thither from Tiphareth. The path of the Bull leads from Chokmah down to Chesed.

[13] Refers to the symbol of the woman and the Bull. See 16th Aethyr.

[14] See Knorr von Rosenroth on the Qlippoth (the Shells). He wrote Kaballa Denudata in Latin which was translated into English as The Kaballah Unveiled by McGregor Mathers, one of the Chiefs of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

[15] The Rose of Earth surmounts the Cross of Fire in the symbol of Venus.

[16] Toil creates kinetic energy.

[17] See 11th Aethyr.

[18] All this paragraph explains the Qabalistic doctrine of stability = change. (Yesod, support of the Tree, is both Air and Luna.)

[19] These are intended to show symbolically that the Bull is the same as the Eagle.

[20] This transformation into Air shows the identity (in ultimate philosophy) of the two forces of change which constitute the Lesser Mysteries of the Sword and the Disk.

[21] Refers to the Scorpion in the symbol of the Bull of Mithras.

[22] These two paragraphs refer to the formula of the Dying God, its perversion and profanation at the hands of those who abused it.

[23] Air has a peripheral consciousness.

[24] The true unity does not exist in any particular number, but in Aleph as a whole.

[25] The Rose and Cross are not merely symbols of definite types of energy — female and male. They are extended in the correlative symbols of infinity — Nuit and Hadit.

[26] Air and Earth are harmonious vibrations — complementary.

[27] The vibrations of Tetragrammaton, Yeheshuah, the Hexagram, and the Swastika are duplicated, being complete in each of the two series, Air and Earth, the lower forms of masculine and feminine. (This refers to a variation of a Buddhist meditation in which peace and love are directed to all points of the universe. By the time Crowley obtained this vision, he had come to know Buddhism — and to discard it.)

[28] See Liber VII, Cap V., v. 30. It is the cry of the consummated rapture of the dissolution of any symbol by virtue of love.

FAL is a permutation of the letters of Aleph, thick darkness; PLA, the hidden wonder — a title of Kether. The whole symbolism of Aleph, III, must be studied thoroughly. It is especially the equations: One = Zero; and Three = One. Aleph is Iacchus, Lord of Ecstasy; Harpocrates, Lord of Silence; Zeus Arrhenotheleus; Bacchus Diphues, Baphomet, etc., Lord of the Two-in-One-Love: Parsifal, the Pure Fool, the wandering spirit of God, who impregnates the King's Daughter. (The best account of all of these symbols is to be found in that section of The Book of Thoth concerning The Fool.) UT is the title of the Holy Guardian Angel in the Upanishads. LI is the Hebrew for "to me."

See Liber AL vel Legis, 1, vv. VIII — Adjustment = the Satisfied Woman; I = Yod, Atu IX — the Hermit.)

See Liber AL vel Legis, II, v. 24. The hidden virtue which satisfies her.

FALUTLI (in Greek) is 1271 = 2542 divided by 2. 2542 is Thelema spelt in full in Greek.