There are so many aspects that I didn’t realise
were connected even though I have been researching the etymology of demons and
mythology of these “hellish” creatures for quite some time. As well as
possession and exorcise. Yes I am aware that m y mind usually borders on the
morbid and most darker of subjects. But as I believe; for there to be light
there must also be darkness. I am sure there will be those that will oppose some
of my views, ideas and research but so be it, to each his own. ( ALSO keep in
mind these are just some of my opinions)
The summoning of demons and spirits have become a part of what is now known as the Occult, that is anything relating to, involving or characteristic of magic, witchcraft, or supernatural phenomena. My favourite definition of Occult is : secret or unknown known only to the initiated. This last I think defines 90% of the world’s populous view of what the occult actually is. It makes us think of all the things that go bump in the night and the evil bogeyman out to get little children.
We could never fully get into the summoning of demons without first introducing the so called fathers of the occult (please take note once again it is not a religion). Some might be surprised to know that some of those considered to be the spark of the “occult crazy” were quite orthodox in religious practices.
Eliphas Levi
(8 February 1810 – 31 May 1875)
Born Aplhonse Louis Constant he attended the seminary of Saint Sulpice and began to study to enter the Roman Catholic priesthood. However, while at the seminary he fell in love, and left without being ordained. Some claim he was thrown out of the Church for his heretical views or as the story goes for “
preaching doctrines contrary to the Church.”
While alive he followed the esoteric path and adopted the Jewish pseudonym of Eliphas Levi, which he claimed was a Hebrew version of his, own name. Although known for many books on ritual Magic, Levi is perhaps best known for his work regarding the alleged deity of the Knights Templar, the Baphomet.
Levi considered the Baphomet to be a depiction of the absolute in symbolic form. He used this as a front piece to one of his many books. According to the author Michael Howard, he (Levi) based the illustration on a Gargoyle that appears on a building owned by the Templars; the Commandry of Saint Bris le Vineux.
Levi’s Drawing: An Examination
It is believed that within Levi’s Baphomet, are contained the dualistic nature of life and the male/female aspects of creation. The image combines both male and female qualities; one arm masculine, one feminine; the breasts of a woman with a phallic object on its lap; one arm pointing skyward while one pointing down, perhaps a representation of the Hermetic axiom “As Above…So Below”. The illustration also shows one arm points toward a white crescent moon the other towards a dark crescent moon, perhaps a representation of the waxing and waning phases of the moon but it could also represent the duality of good and evil (yin/yang). On the Right arm is written “Solve” Solution and on the Left “Coagula” Coagulation. These are references found in alchemy, a study that Levi not only undertook but also wrote about in his books.
Here is what Eliphas Levi had to say about the Baphomet image he drew:
“The goat on the frontispiece carries the sign of the pentagram on the forehead, with one point at the top, a symbol of light, his two hands forming the
sign of hermeticism, the one pointing up to the white moon of the Quabbalic
Chesed, the other pointing down to the black one of Geburah. This sign expresses the perfect harmony of mercy with justice. His one arm is female, the other male like the ones of the androgyn of Khunrath, the attributes of which we had to unite with those of our goat because he is one and the same symbol. The flame of intelligence shining between his horns is the magic light of the universal balance, the image of the soul elevated above matter, as the flame, whilst being tied to matter, shines above it. The ugly beast’s head expresses the horror of the sinner, whose materially acting, solely responsible part has to bear the punishment exclusively; because the soul is insensitive according to its nature and can only suffer when it materializes. The rod standing instead of genitals symbolizes eternal life, the body covered with scales the water, the semi-circle above it the atmosphere, the feathers following above the volatile. Humanity is represented by the two breasts and the androgyne arms of this sphinx of the occult sciences.”
Levi believed that if one rearranged the letters in Baphomet by reversing them you would come up with an abbreviated Latin phrase:
TEM OHP AB
He further believed that this would represent the Latin “Templi omnivm hominum pacis abbas” or in English “The Father of The Temple of Peace of All Men”. This he felt to be a reference to King Solomon’s Temple, which Eliphas believed had the sole purpose of bringing peace to the world.
In 1854 he took a trip to London, where he first tried necromancy. A mysterious woman who claimed to be an adept asked him to conjure the spirit of
Appolonius Tyana, a gifted man of ancient times. Levi undertook an enormous preparation that included two weeks of eating a vegetarian diet and a week of fasting, during which he mediated on Appolonius and imagined having conversations with him. When he felt ready to perform the conjuration, Levi dressed in white robes and entered his magic chamber, where there were mirrors on the walls. In the center of the room he placed a table and covered it with white lambskin. He lit fires in two metal bowls and placed them on the table. Then he began his incantations, which went on for 12 hours. According to Levi’s account, he began to feel progressively colder as he went deeper into the ritual. After 12 hours had passed, the floor beneath him began to shake, and he saw an apparition in one of the mirrors. He asked the ghost to appear. At his third request, a greyish spirit appeared in front of him, thin and sad and wrapped from head to foot in a grey shroud. Levi, frightened, felt extremely cold. The apparition touched Levi’s ritual sword, and his arm suddenly went numb. He dropped the sword and fainted. Levi’s arm was sore and numb for days after the incident. He said later that though he never spoke his questions, they were in his mind, and the apparition had responded in telepathy. The answers, he said, were “death” and “dead”, but he never revealed the questions. Levi remained unconvinced that he had conjured the spirit of Appolonius. In subsequest rituals, however, he claimed that he called upon Appolonius several times.
Before his death he is said to have reconciled with the church and received the last rites. Eliphas Levi died on May 31st, 1875 and his books remain in print well over 100 years after his death. It is however, his illustrative representation of Baphomet that found its way into Waite’s Tarot deck as the Devil card and has in the process added another page to the Baphomet Mythos and perhaps added to demonizing something that may have had a more innocent interpretation.
There is no proof of any true connection to between the Knights Templar and the Baphomet, but it must be noted that artifacts have been found of imagines that in some form resemble the description made by Levi.
John Dee
(13 July 1527-1608/1609)
A Welsh mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist who devoted much of his life to the study of alchemy, divination and
Hermetic philosophy. One of the most learned men of his age, he had been invited to lecture on advanced algebra at the University of Paris while still in his early twenties. Dee was an ardent promoter of mathematics and a respected astronomer, as well as a leading expert in navigation.
Simultaneously with these efforts, Dee immersed himself in the worlds of magic, astrology and Hermetic philosophy
.
He devoted much time and effort in the last thirty years or so of his life to attempting to commune with angels in order to learn the universal language of creation ( this may refer to a hypothetical or historical language spoken and understood by all or most of the world’s population. In some contexts, it refers to a means of communication said to be understood by all living things, beings, and objects alike. In other conceptions, it may be the primary language of all speakers, or the only existing language. Some mythological or religious traditions state that there was once a single universal language among all people, or shared by humans and supernatural beings) and bring about the pre-apocalyptic unity of mankind.
In 1555, he was arrested and charged with “calculating” for having cast horoscopes of Queen Mary and
Princess Elizabeth; the charges were expanded to treason against Mary. Dee appeared in the Star Chamber
and exonerated himself, but was turned over to the Catholic Bishop Bonner for religious examination. His strong and lifelong penchant for secrecy perhaps worsening matters, this entire episode was only the most dramatic in a series of attacks and slanders that would dog Dee throughout his life. Clearing his name yet again, he soon became a close associate of Bonner.
When Elizabeth took the throne in 1558, Dee became her trusted advisor on astrological and scientific matters, choosing Elizabeth’s coronation date himself.
In 1582 John Dee had become acquainted with Edward Kelley also known as Edward Telbot (a man of questionable nature), by this time Dee had grown dissatisfied with his progress in learning the secretes of nature, naturally, and with his lack of influence or recognition so he turned to the supernatural. He specifically sought to contact angels through a “scryer”, up until meeting Kelley Dee’s attempts had been unsuccessful. Through Kelley Dee had many books dictated to him. These rituals were said to have taken place in an intense air of Christian piety, after purification and fasting. John Dee and Kelley where supposed to also have raised a dead man from his grave but since, as in all their rituals, only the two were present there are no other witness accounts. In 1583
Dee met the visiting Polish nobleman Albert Łaski
, who invited Dee to accompany him on his return to Poland. Kelley and Dee accompanied him along with their families.
Dee and Kelley remained firm companions for some time, then Kelley announced that the angel Uriel had told him that they should share their wives, by some accounts, it seemed that at first they did not part ways immediately but soon after this they did.
He drew no distinctions between his mathematical research and his investigations into Hermetic magic – angel summoning and divination. Instead he considered all of his activities to constitute different facets of the same quest: the search for a transcendent understanding of the divine forms which underlie the visible world, which Dee called “pure verities”.
The last but definitely not least….
Aleister Crowley
(12 October 1875 – 01 December 1947)
Born Edward Alexander Crowley (pronounced with a crow so that it rhymes with holy), known also as Sir
Aleister Crowley, Saint Aleister Crowley (of the Gnostic Catholic Church), FraterPerdurabo (means – “Brother I shall endure to the end”)
, FraterOuMh, To Mega Therion, Count McGregor, Count Vladimir
Svareff, Chao Khan, Mahatma Guru Sri ParamahansaShivaji, Baphomet, and Ipsissimus; obviously, a case of the ontological fidgets – couldn’t make up his mind who he really was; chiefly known as The Beast 666 or The Great Beast, was an English poet, occultist , mystic and ceremonial magician who believed himself to be the reincarnation of Eliphas Levi.
Crowley was also bisexual, a recreational drug experimenter and a social critic. In many of these roles, he “
was in revolt against the moral and religious values of his time“, espousing a form of libertinism based upon the rule of “Do What Thou Wilt”. Because of this, he gained widespread notoriety during his lifetime, and was denounced in the popular press of the day as “
the wickedest man in the world“.
In 1904, Crowley and his new wife Rose travelled to Egypt using the pseudonym of Prince and Princess Chioa Khan, titles which Crowley claimed had been bestowed upon him by an eastern
potentate.According to Crowley’s own account, Rose, who was pregnant, began to experience visions while in the country, regularly informing him that “
they are waiting for you“, but not providing him with any further information as to who “they” were. It was on 18 March, after Crowley sought the aid of the Egyptian god Thoth in a magical rite, that she actually revealed who “they” were – the ancient Egyptian god Horus and his alleged messenger. She then led him to a nearby museum in Cairo where she showed him a seventh-century BCE mortuary
stele
known as the Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu (it later came to be revered in Thelema as the “Stele of Revealing
“); Crowley was astounded, for the exhibit’s number was 666, the number of the beast
in Christian belief (which he had adopted as his magickal number derived numerically from his name Aleister E. Crowely translated into Hebrew). Crowley took this all to be a sign from a divine entity and on 20 March began performing ritual invocations of the god Horus in his rented room. It was after this invocation that Rose, or as he now referred to her, Ouarda the Seeress, informed him that “the
Equinox of the Gods had come“.It was on the 8 April, when the couple were still staying in Cairo, that Crowley claimed he heard a disembodied voice talking to him, claiming that it was coming from a being Crowley named as
Aiwass the Minister of Hoor-Paar-Kraat. Crowley said that he wrote down everything the voice told him over the course of the next three days, and subsequently titled it
Liber AL vel Legis or The Book of the Law.In the preface to the Book of the Law, Crowley explains that the ideas presented within the book are symbolized by Egyptian Gods for
‘literary convenience‘. The Book declares that a new Aeon for mankind had begun, and that Crowley would serve as its
prophet. As a supreme moral law, Nuit declared “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law
“, and that people should learn to live in tune with their “True Will
“. The story goes that although this event would prove to be a cornerstone in Crowley’s life, being the origin of the philosophy of
Thelema, he claimed at the time he was unsure what to think about the whole situation. Thelema includes the ideas of will, choice, inclination, desire, including sexual desire, and pleasure.
So why was Crowley dubbed the “the wickedest man in the world”
Well for a number of reasons actually, he was by nature a controversial man. Surrounded by truth, mystery and in larger amounts – gossip and sometimes it is a little difficult to separate the man Aleister Crowley from the “myth Aleister Crowley”.
So as I mentioned very briefly he took the magickal number 666 as his own. In biblical tradition this is the number of “
The Beast” on whose coattails the apocalypse is/was supposed to follow. Now certain numbers and their combinations were traditionally held to be of magical power, by virtue of their representation of divine and creative mysteries. The doctrines of
Pythagoras (now we all know who he was right?) furnished the basis for much of this belief. According to his theory, numbers contained the elements of all things, of the natural and spiritual worlds and of the sciences (not just his mathematical laws that are taught to us in school) .The real numerals of the universe were the primaries, one to ten, and in their combination the reason of all else might be found.
So basically one represented unity, therefore God; two was duality, the Devil; four was sacred and holy, the number on which was sworn the most solemn oaths; five was their symbol of marriage. They also attributed certain numbers to the gods, planets and elements; one represented the Sun, two the Moon; while five was fire, six the Earth, eight the air, and twelve water. (See
magic square) Most important to note
Six is the sign of creation, because the world was completed in six days. It is the perfect number, because it alone by addition of its half, its third and its sixth reforms itself – in other words a sixth part of it constitutes unity; a third is two; a half — three; two-thirds (
Greek: dimoiron) is four; five-sixths (
pentamoiron) is five; six is the perfect whole. It also represents servitude by reason of the Divine injunction, “Six days
shalt thou labour.”
So lets continue with the Number of the Beast is 666 (which is of prominent significance in the Magickal
system of Thelema). It is the sum of the numbers inside the magic square of the Sun, which is still used today by some
Kabbalists, astrologists and numerologists.According to Crowley, it is a solar number. The Stele of Revealing bore the catalogue number 666 at the time when Crowley discovered it, (which was one of the events that lead to the writing of the Book of the Law as we stated before) and how he originally came about taking this number was
Just some more information on numerology and the number 666, the following numbers are representations:
32 is the number of total manifestion. It is Ichid – ego/self – the prism through which is projected phenomenal manifestation on the obverse of the Tree (tree of life). 32 is of the Tree of Life (obverse / manifestation / being / phenomena). 23 is the reverse of 32. Hence, 23 is the number emblematic of the other or reverse side of the Tree. 23 is the essence of the Tree of Death (reverse / non-manifestaion / non-being / noumena). 23 ‘manifests’ by dividing itself (into being): 2 ÷ 3 = .666 (the Beast). As 666 is to 32, so 23 is to the reverse of 666 that is 999. — The Beast ‘made flesh’ is a reflection or ingress of 23 / 999 (noumena) into phenomena as 32 / 666.
(Yes I am aware it might take reading it a few times to make sense of it.)
basically that through different Hebrew transliterations, he was able to derive the value 666 from his own name as “Aleister Crowley” and as “Aleister E. Crowley.” The Greek phrase
To Mega Therion
(“The Great Beast”) has the value of 666, as does the Greek word Therion (“Beast”) when transliterated into Hebrew as ThRIVN. The Hebrew word AChIHA (“The Beast”—the usual spelling is ChIVA) has the value 666 when spelled “in full,” i.e. ALP-ChITh-YVD-HH-ALP.
So of course the cherry on top of the icing (I like chocolate cake so we’ll go with that) 666 was the exhibit number attached to the Stele of Revealing in the Cairo Museum which he took to be a “heavenly” sign. Crowley also identified 666 with the Egyptian
neteru glyph, meaning “gods” or “spirits.” (The
neteru glyph is visible at the left end of the third horizontal register on the obverse of the Stele.) When written NVThIRV,
neteru has the value of 666. Finally, ANKH-F-N-KHONShU-T also has the value of 666.
So there u have a very complex answer for a somewhat “simple” number.
When Crowley was on the stand in a libel case, he was asked about his identification with the number 666. He replied, “It means merely sunlight. You may call me Little Sunshine.” (The man had a sense of
humour at least)
And just so that everyone knows, call it some useful trivia, 666 is the value of Shem Yeheshuah, i.e. “The Name
Jesus.”
So as luck would have it after the Beast had spend the better part of eight years walking across china with his wife and daughter (he had basically lost his mine with a very complicated idea that most people of enlightenment come across at some point or another) he found, after coming back to his senses (for want of a better phrase) that is, that his “new ritual” to invoke the Holy Guardian Angel (which he came upon during loosing his mind) in 1906 was the most closely-guarded secret of the
OrdoTempliOrientis.OrdoTempliOrientis, a secret Masonic group tracing direct decent from the Knights Templar (don’t they just keep cropping up).
(He had of course already been a member of the esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn – initiates are initiated in the Masonic fashion but women were admitted on an equal basis – although he did not get along with many of its member like the Poet W.B. Yeats.)
He was asked, that since he knew their most closely guarded secret, to become a member of the O.T.O at the 9
th degree (i.e. a head of the orginisation) at this time he was already 33rd degree member of the Freemasons.
the Beast wrote in his Confessions.
“Now the O.T.O. is in possession of one supreme secret. The whole of its systems… was directed towards communicating to its members, by progressively plain hints, this all-important instruction. I personally believe that if this secret, which is a scientific secret, were perfectly understood, as it is not even by me after more than twelve years’ almost constant study and experiment, there would be nothing which the human imagination can conceive that could not be realized in practice.”
Israel Regardie, the Beast’s most perceptive biographer, comes close to revealing the secret in a book called
The Tree of Life.However, he remarks that the method in question is “so liable to indiscriminate abuse and use in Black Magic
that it is not safe to reveal it directly”; he therefore employs a symbolism which, like a Zen riddle, can be decoded only after one had achieved certain spiritual insights. This is of course linked to Crowely’s statement that he sacrificed 150 children daily. A statement which added to his reputation of being a Satanist and of being supremely wicked. I will explain this statement soon but hopefully you’ll figure it out before then.
Charles Manson understood at least part of this Arcanum of Arcanums; his misuse of it is a classic example of the danger warned of by Crowley in
Liber O: “he will be the slave of illusion and the prey of madness… His Ego will expand unchecked, till he seem to himself to have heaven at his feet…
“
He also had a word about Evil for us – the Beast’s frequent reference to “explore every possibility of the Self
” and realize your True Will etc. have often been misunderstood, especially when quoted out of context, in which case he sounds battier than those armchair enthusiasts of mayhem and murder,
Stirner and Nietzsche and Sorel. But neither was the
Beast an armchair philosopher, but rather an explorer, mountain-climber and big-game hunter who knew violence and sudden death well enough to call them by their first names; he did not romanticize them. Here are his actual instructions about Evil from
Liber V, an instruction manual of the A.A.:
“The Magician should devise for himself a definite technique for destroying “evil.” The essence of such practice will consist in training the mind and body to confront things which cause fear, pain, disgust, shame and the like. He must learn to endure them, then to become indifferent to them, then to analyze them until they give pleasure and instruction, and finally to appreciate them for their own sake, as aspects of Truth. When this has been done, he should abandon them if they are really harmful in relation to health or comfort…Again, one might have a liaison with an ugly old woman until one beheld and love the star which she is; it would be too dangerous to overcome this distaste for dishonesty by forcing oneself to pick pockets. Acts which are essentially dishonorable must not be done; they should be justified only by calm contemplation of their correctness in abstract cases.”
Digest carefully that last sentence. These shrewd and pragmatic counsels are not those of a bloody-minded fool.
The Morning of the Magicians by Pauwels and Bergier was a best-seller, so we assume that many readers are aware of the strange evolution of some forms of
Rosicrucianism and
Illuminism in 19th Century Germany.Such Readers are aware that there is certain evidence – not a little evidence, but a great deal of it – indicating that Adolph Hitler joined something called the
Thule Society in Munich in 1923, and then later obtained admission to its inner circle, the
Illuminated Lodge, and that it was here he acquired certain ideas about the value of human sacrifice. It is, in fact, not only possible but probable that the attempted extermination of European Jewry was not only the act of insane racism but a religious offering to gods who demanded rivers of human blood. The same psychology possessed by the Aztecs toward the end of their civilization. The omens, the oracles, the astrological
skryings
all pointed to doom, and the blood sacrifices correspondingly multiplied exponentially, hysterically, incredibly… and south in Yucatan much earlier, the Mayans, who always tried to restrict the blood sacrifice to one or two a year, deserted their cities for an unknown reason and fled back to the jungle; they shared the same astrological beliefs as the Aztecs, and it is plausible to suggest that they ran away from a similar oracle telling them that only more blood could preserve the empire.
In fact – let us note this only for the benefit of future students of paranoia – a similar theory about our own glorious rulers has sometimes crossed many of our mind (come on admit it).Why not? Every time an S-M club is raided by the fuzz, the newspapers mutter vaguely that among the clientele were “prominent” and “high-placed” individuals; and don’t ever tell me, Clyde, that those birds actually believe the milk-water “liberal” Judeo-Christian faith that they mouth in their public speeches. Right?
“Many gods demand blood” the Beast once commented sardonically – “especially the Christian god
.”
And, yes, there is a link between Crowley and Hitler. Just in case you were wondering were I was headed with this. (Douglas Hunt, the Beast’s most hysterically unfair critic said so in his
Exploring the Occult, and he was closer to the bullseye than the Beast’s admirers.)There is a link, but it is relationship of reciprocity, for Hitler and Crowley are the reverse of each other. Thus (and now we plunge to the heart of the riddle) here are the mind-bending, gut-turning words from Chapter XII, “Of the Bloody Sacrifice and Matters Cognate,” in
Magick in Theory and Practice
:
“In any case it was the theory of ancient Magicians that any living being is a storehouse of energy varying in quantity according to the size and health of the animal and in quality according to its mental and moral character. At the death of the animal this energy is liberated suddenly. For the highest spiritual working one must accordingly
choose that victim which contains the greatest and purest force. A male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence is the most satisfactory and suitable victim.”
(so now you are also aware where animal sacrifice comes from and burnt offering that are noted in the bible)
A footnote is appended here, not at the end of this sentence but attached to the word “intelligence.” This footnote is perhaps the most famous sentence the Beast ever wrote, the footnote reads:
It appears from the Magical Records of Frater Perdurabo (i.e., Crowley himself) that He made this particular sacrifice on an average about 150 times every year between 1912
e.v. and 1928
e.v.
This certainly seems clear, and horrible, enough, but the chapter concludes with the following further remarks:
“You are also likely to get in trouble over this chapter unless you truly comprehend its meaning…The whole idea of the word Sacrifice, as commonly understood, rests upon an error and superstition, and is unscientific. Let the young Magician reflect upon the conservation of Matter and of Energy…There is a traditional saying that whenever an Adept seems to have made a straightforward, comprehensible statement, then it is most certain that He means something entirely different…The radical error of all
uninitiates is that they define “self” as irreconcilably opposed to “not-self.” Each element of oneself is, on the contrary, sterile and without meaning, until it fulfils itself, by “love under will,” in its counterpart in the Macrocosm. To separate
oneself from others is to lose that self – its sense of separateness – in the other.”
The chapter, is called “Of the Bloody Sacrifice: and Matters Cognate,” and the Beast was a precise, almost pathologically sensitive, stylist. If the whole discussion was about the “
bloody sacrifice
,” where the heck are the “matters cognate“?And why does the footnote modify “male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence
” instead of the last word in the sentence, “victim”?
So let us review: The Beast originally failed in the invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel; his final success came after:
(a) his success in both the physical and mental disciplines of yoga.
(b) the achievement of accomplished skill in astral voyaging, and
(c) the death of the mind (going batty) in China, after which he himself became “a little child;” the new ritual which successfully invoked the Angel in 1906 was the same which the
Ordo
Templi Orientis had kept as a secret for unknown centuries – presumably, other occult groups here and there, like the Beast, had also discovered it independently; because of his oath as a 9th degree member of the O.T.O., the Beast could not disclose it publicly; due to his love of both poetry and cabalism, we can be sure that the code in which he hints at it – the language of bloody sacrifice – would have some innate and existential (not merely accidental) correspondence with the true secret. Finally, the ritual seems somehow connected with “love under will” and losing (the) self – its sense of separateness – in the other.”
But I am sure some readers already know the secret (well I hope they’ve picked it up). Even outside the Manson Family, there is a lot of religious balling going on these days by people who have rediscovered part of the ritual of Isis; what the Beast was teaching was nothing as facile as this. So let me give you u some more information maybe you’ll get it before I spell it out. The following words from Chapter VII, “
The Formula of the Holy Graal,” in Magick are meant with dreadful literalness:
“The Cup is said to be full of the Blood of the Saints; that is, every ‘saint’ or magician must give the last drop of his life’s blood to that cup (in) the true Bridal of the Rosy Cross…
“It is a woman whose Cup must be filled. It is…the sacrifice of the Man, who transfers life to his descendents…For
it is his whole life that the Magus offers to Our Lady. The Cross is both Death and Generation, and it is on the Cross that the Rose blooms…”
others have guessed…
Well I hope they have but if not let me say this. People take this particular statement of Crowley’s way to literally. In truth he was very ‘Pro-life’, he did not consider abortion a choice a women should make at all. He felt that if society would leave a woman to her own choice and devices, then a woman would rarely chose to abort (we take this to mean the stigma attached to an unwed mother).
But for those who might still be confused…
Many of the rituals used by ….certain groups include the invokation/ evokation through the sexual act between a man and a woman. The height of the ceremony or magical practice is achieved through the climax of the two participants (with an audience of course). The sacrifice Crowley was referring to was the ejaculation of semen. Yes yes I know an odd way to think of it, if your reason it this way. It is the man that must make the sacrifice of the ‘self’ and the woman’s cup that must be fill (please don’t make me spell it out) and Crowley reasoned that once semen left the body it was no longer a part of the ‘self’, a part of him. It was a separate entity that could have resulted in human life. Something else that most people do not know is that some cultures believed that when man reaches climax and it resulted in the release of sperm he died little each time.
In truth Crowley loved publicity, any publicity for that matter even if it was negative publicity. I think that when one sits down and studies some of the things he said publicly we would find that it was in many ways just to arouse controversy.
Even with his death no two autobiographers could agree on way he dead. Especially when one learns that twenty four hours after Crowley’s death his last doctor also died very mysteriously. Apparently, Crowley was on Heroin for pain, he refused to renew the prescriptions for the Beast and shortly after he “dropped dead”.
Friends and disciples celebrated his funeral with a Black Mass: or so the newspapers said. Actually it was a Gnostic Catholic Mass, it was certainly not an orthodox Roman Catholic or Anglican mass, I mean,
the priestess took off her clothes in one part of it – as in buck naked!
So the town council had a meeting – this was the Ridge, in Hastings, England, 1947, not 1347 – and they passed an ordinance that no such heathen rites would ever be tolerated in any funeral services in their town, not
never.
If there is a central lesson to be learned from the Beast, it is not really Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law
, which has been around since Rabelais; not even the more profound and gnomic
Every man and every woman is a Star; not even the formula of the Perfect Orgasm!; it is rather his humour, his scepticism, his irony that revelled in the title of Beast and, even, at times, Ass; the rationality that warned against becoming “the prey of madness” by trusting one’s visions too quickly, and the common sense which said that, even if good and evil are identical on the Absolute plane, a man operating on the relative plane simply doesn’t enjoy a toothache or invent rationalizations to pick a brother’s pocket; the solemn warning that the sacrament is not completed until the Magician offers “the last drop of his life’s blood” to the Cup, and dies; but, above all these, the simple historical record which reveals that with all the ardour, all the dedication, all the passion he possessed, it still took eight years (including four months’ madness) before he broke down the wall that separates Ego from the true Self and that Self from the Universe.
So yes although this started out as a long into summoning I just had to share some of the “interesting thing” that can be discovered if you are truly willing to look. And some of the links that will emerge over the next few posts might surprise you. So on to the meat and potatoes…..
The summoning of demons and spirits have become a part of what is now known as the Occult, that is anything relating to, involving or characteristic of magic, witchcraft, or supernatural phenomena. My favourite definition of Occult is : secret or unknown known only to the initiated. This last I think defines 90% of the world’s populous view of what the occult actually is. It makes us think of all the things that go bump in the night and the evil bogeyman out to get little children.
We could never fully get into the summoning of demons without first introducing the so called fathers of the occult (please take note once again it is not a religion). Some might be surprised to know that some of those considered to be the spark of the “occult crazy” were quite orthodox in religious practices.
Eliphas Levi
(8 February 1810 – 31 May 1875)
Born Aplhonse Louis Constant he attended the seminary of Saint Sulpice and began to study to enter the Roman Catholic priesthood. However, while at the seminary he fell in love, and left without being ordained. Some claim he was thrown out of the Church for his heretical views or as the story goes for “
preaching doctrines contrary to the Church.”
While alive he followed the esoteric path and adopted the Jewish pseudonym of Eliphas Levi, which he claimed was a Hebrew version of his, own name. Although known for many books on ritual Magic, Levi is perhaps best known for his work regarding the alleged deity of the Knights Templar, the Baphomet.
Levi considered the Baphomet to be a depiction of the absolute in symbolic form. He used this as a front piece to one of his many books. According to the author Michael Howard, he (Levi) based the illustration on a Gargoyle that appears on a building owned by the Templars; the Commandry of Saint Bris le Vineux.
Levi’s Drawing: An Examination
It is believed that within Levi’s Baphomet, are contained the dualistic nature of life and the male/female aspects of creation. The image combines both male and female qualities; one arm masculine, one feminine; the breasts of a woman with a phallic object on its lap; one arm pointing skyward while one pointing down, perhaps a representation of the Hermetic axiom “As Above…So Below”. The illustration also shows one arm points toward a white crescent moon the other towards a dark crescent moon, perhaps a representation of the waxing and waning phases of the moon but it could also represent the duality of good and evil (yin/yang). On the Right arm is written “Solve” Solution and on the Left “Coagula” Coagulation. These are references found in alchemy, a study that Levi not only undertook but also wrote about in his books.
Here is what Eliphas Levi had to say about the Baphomet image he drew:
“The goat on the frontispiece carries the sign of the pentagram on the forehead, with one point at the top, a symbol of light, his two hands forming the
sign of hermeticism, the one pointing up to the white moon of the Quabbalic
Chesed, the other pointing down to the black one of Geburah. This sign expresses the perfect harmony of mercy with justice. His one arm is female, the other male like the ones of the androgyn of Khunrath, the attributes of which we had to unite with those of our goat because he is one and the same symbol. The flame of intelligence shining between his horns is the magic light of the universal balance, the image of the soul elevated above matter, as the flame, whilst being tied to matter, shines above it. The ugly beast’s head expresses the horror of the sinner, whose materially acting, solely responsible part has to bear the punishment exclusively; because the soul is insensitive according to its nature and can only suffer when it materializes. The rod standing instead of genitals symbolizes eternal life, the body covered with scales the water, the semi-circle above it the atmosphere, the feathers following above the volatile. Humanity is represented by the two breasts and the androgyne arms of this sphinx of the occult sciences.”
Levi believed that if one rearranged the letters in Baphomet by reversing them you would come up with an abbreviated Latin phrase:
TEM OHP AB
He further believed that this would represent the Latin “Templi omnivm hominum pacis abbas” or in English “The Father of The Temple of Peace of All Men”. This he felt to be a reference to King Solomon’s Temple, which Eliphas believed had the sole purpose of bringing peace to the world.
In 1854 he took a trip to London, where he first tried necromancy. A mysterious woman who claimed to be an adept asked him to conjure the spirit of
Appolonius Tyana, a gifted man of ancient times. Levi undertook an enormous preparation that included two weeks of eating a vegetarian diet and a week of fasting, during which he mediated on Appolonius and imagined having conversations with him. When he felt ready to perform the conjuration, Levi dressed in white robes and entered his magic chamber, where there were mirrors on the walls. In the center of the room he placed a table and covered it with white lambskin. He lit fires in two metal bowls and placed them on the table. Then he began his incantations, which went on for 12 hours. According to Levi’s account, he began to feel progressively colder as he went deeper into the ritual. After 12 hours had passed, the floor beneath him began to shake, and he saw an apparition in one of the mirrors. He asked the ghost to appear. At his third request, a greyish spirit appeared in front of him, thin and sad and wrapped from head to foot in a grey shroud. Levi, frightened, felt extremely cold. The apparition touched Levi’s ritual sword, and his arm suddenly went numb. He dropped the sword and fainted. Levi’s arm was sore and numb for days after the incident. He said later that though he never spoke his questions, they were in his mind, and the apparition had responded in telepathy. The answers, he said, were “death” and “dead”, but he never revealed the questions. Levi remained unconvinced that he had conjured the spirit of Appolonius. In subsequest rituals, however, he claimed that he called upon Appolonius several times.
Before his death he is said to have reconciled with the church and received the last rites. Eliphas Levi died on May 31st, 1875 and his books remain in print well over 100 years after his death. It is however, his illustrative representation of Baphomet that found its way into Waite’s Tarot deck as the Devil card and has in the process added another page to the Baphomet Mythos and perhaps added to demonizing something that may have had a more innocent interpretation.
There is no proof of any true connection to between the Knights Templar and the Baphomet, but it must be noted that artifacts have been found of imagines that in some form resemble the description made by Levi.
John Dee
(13 July 1527-1608/1609)
A Welsh mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist who devoted much of his life to the study of alchemy, divination and
Hermetic philosophy. One of the most learned men of his age, he had been invited to lecture on advanced algebra at the University of Paris while still in his early twenties. Dee was an ardent promoter of mathematics and a respected astronomer, as well as a leading expert in navigation.
Simultaneously with these efforts, Dee immersed himself in the worlds of magic, astrology and Hermetic philosophy
.
He devoted much time and effort in the last thirty years or so of his life to attempting to commune with angels in order to learn the universal language of creation ( this may refer to a hypothetical or historical language spoken and understood by all or most of the world’s population. In some contexts, it refers to a means of communication said to be understood by all living things, beings, and objects alike. In other conceptions, it may be the primary language of all speakers, or the only existing language. Some mythological or religious traditions state that there was once a single universal language among all people, or shared by humans and supernatural beings) and bring about the pre-apocalyptic unity of mankind.
In 1555, he was arrested and charged with “calculating” for having cast horoscopes of Queen Mary and
Princess Elizabeth; the charges were expanded to treason against Mary. Dee appeared in the Star Chamber
and exonerated himself, but was turned over to the Catholic Bishop Bonner for religious examination. His strong and lifelong penchant for secrecy perhaps worsening matters, this entire episode was only the most dramatic in a series of attacks and slanders that would dog Dee throughout his life. Clearing his name yet again, he soon became a close associate of Bonner.
When Elizabeth took the throne in 1558, Dee became her trusted advisor on astrological and scientific matters, choosing Elizabeth’s coronation date himself.
In 1582 John Dee had become acquainted with Edward Kelley also known as Edward Telbot (a man of questionable nature), by this time Dee had grown dissatisfied with his progress in learning the secretes of nature, naturally, and with his lack of influence or recognition so he turned to the supernatural. He specifically sought to contact angels through a “scryer”, up until meeting Kelley Dee’s attempts had been unsuccessful. Through Kelley Dee had many books dictated to him. These rituals were said to have taken place in an intense air of Christian piety, after purification and fasting. John Dee and Kelley where supposed to also have raised a dead man from his grave but since, as in all their rituals, only the two were present there are no other witness accounts. In 1583
Dee met the visiting Polish nobleman Albert Łaski
, who invited Dee to accompany him on his return to Poland. Kelley and Dee accompanied him along with their families.
Dee and Kelley remained firm companions for some time, then Kelley announced that the angel Uriel had told him that they should share their wives, by some accounts, it seemed that at first they did not part ways immediately but soon after this they did.
He drew no distinctions between his mathematical research and his investigations into Hermetic magic – angel summoning and divination. Instead he considered all of his activities to constitute different facets of the same quest: the search for a transcendent understanding of the divine forms which underlie the visible world, which Dee called “pure verities”.
The last but definitely not least….
Aleister Crowley
(12 October 1875 – 01 December 1947)
Born Edward Alexander Crowley (pronounced with a crow so that it rhymes with holy), known also as Sir
Aleister Crowley, Saint Aleister Crowley (of the Gnostic Catholic Church), FraterPerdurabo (means – “Brother I shall endure to the end”)
, FraterOuMh, To Mega Therion, Count McGregor, Count Vladimir
Svareff, Chao Khan, Mahatma Guru Sri ParamahansaShivaji, Baphomet, and Ipsissimus; obviously, a case of the ontological fidgets – couldn’t make up his mind who he really was; chiefly known as The Beast 666 or The Great Beast, was an English poet, occultist , mystic and ceremonial magician who believed himself to be the reincarnation of Eliphas Levi.
Crowley was also bisexual, a recreational drug experimenter and a social critic. In many of these roles, he “
was in revolt against the moral and religious values of his time“, espousing a form of libertinism based upon the rule of “Do What Thou Wilt”. Because of this, he gained widespread notoriety during his lifetime, and was denounced in the popular press of the day as “
the wickedest man in the world“.
In 1904, Crowley and his new wife Rose travelled to Egypt using the pseudonym of Prince and Princess Chioa Khan, titles which Crowley claimed had been bestowed upon him by an eastern
potentate.According to Crowley’s own account, Rose, who was pregnant, began to experience visions while in the country, regularly informing him that “
they are waiting for you“, but not providing him with any further information as to who “they” were. It was on 18 March, after Crowley sought the aid of the Egyptian god Thoth in a magical rite, that she actually revealed who “they” were – the ancient Egyptian god Horus and his alleged messenger. She then led him to a nearby museum in Cairo where she showed him a seventh-century BCE mortuary
stele
known as the Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu (it later came to be revered in Thelema as the “Stele of Revealing
“); Crowley was astounded, for the exhibit’s number was 666, the number of the beast
in Christian belief (which he had adopted as his magickal number derived numerically from his name Aleister E. Crowely translated into Hebrew). Crowley took this all to be a sign from a divine entity and on 20 March began performing ritual invocations of the god Horus in his rented room. It was after this invocation that Rose, or as he now referred to her, Ouarda the Seeress, informed him that “the
Equinox of the Gods had come“.It was on the 8 April, when the couple were still staying in Cairo, that Crowley claimed he heard a disembodied voice talking to him, claiming that it was coming from a being Crowley named as
Aiwass the Minister of Hoor-Paar-Kraat. Crowley said that he wrote down everything the voice told him over the course of the next three days, and subsequently titled it
Liber AL vel Legis or The Book of the Law.In the preface to the Book of the Law, Crowley explains that the ideas presented within the book are symbolized by Egyptian Gods for
‘literary convenience‘. The Book declares that a new Aeon for mankind had begun, and that Crowley would serve as its
prophet. As a supreme moral law, Nuit declared “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law
“, and that people should learn to live in tune with their “True Will
“. The story goes that although this event would prove to be a cornerstone in Crowley’s life, being the origin of the philosophy of
Thelema, he claimed at the time he was unsure what to think about the whole situation. Thelema includes the ideas of will, choice, inclination, desire, including sexual desire, and pleasure.
So why was Crowley dubbed the “the wickedest man in the world”
Well for a number of reasons actually, he was by nature a controversial man. Surrounded by truth, mystery and in larger amounts – gossip and sometimes it is a little difficult to separate the man Aleister Crowley from the “myth Aleister Crowley”.
So as I mentioned very briefly he took the magickal number 666 as his own. In biblical tradition this is the number of “
The Beast” on whose coattails the apocalypse is/was supposed to follow. Now certain numbers and their combinations were traditionally held to be of magical power, by virtue of their representation of divine and creative mysteries. The doctrines of
Pythagoras (now we all know who he was right?) furnished the basis for much of this belief. According to his theory, numbers contained the elements of all things, of the natural and spiritual worlds and of the sciences (not just his mathematical laws that are taught to us in school) .The real numerals of the universe were the primaries, one to ten, and in their combination the reason of all else might be found.
So basically one represented unity, therefore God; two was duality, the Devil; four was sacred and holy, the number on which was sworn the most solemn oaths; five was their symbol of marriage. They also attributed certain numbers to the gods, planets and elements; one represented the Sun, two the Moon; while five was fire, six the Earth, eight the air, and twelve water. (See
magic square) Most important to note
Six is the sign of creation, because the world was completed in six days. It is the perfect number, because it alone by addition of its half, its third and its sixth reforms itself – in other words a sixth part of it constitutes unity; a third is two; a half — three; two-thirds (
Greek: dimoiron) is four; five-sixths (
pentamoiron) is five; six is the perfect whole. It also represents servitude by reason of the Divine injunction, “Six days
shalt thou labour.”
So lets continue with the Number of the Beast is 666 (which is of prominent significance in the Magickal
system of Thelema). It is the sum of the numbers inside the magic square of the Sun, which is still used today by some
Kabbalists, astrologists and numerologists.According to Crowley, it is a solar number. The Stele of Revealing bore the catalogue number 666 at the time when Crowley discovered it, (which was one of the events that lead to the writing of the Book of the Law as we stated before) and how he originally came about taking this number was
Just some more information on numerology and the number 666, the following numbers are representations:
32 is the number of total manifestion. It is Ichid – ego/self – the prism through which is projected phenomenal manifestation on the obverse of the Tree (tree of life). 32 is of the Tree of Life (obverse / manifestation / being / phenomena). 23 is the reverse of 32. Hence, 23 is the number emblematic of the other or reverse side of the Tree. 23 is the essence of the Tree of Death (reverse / non-manifestaion / non-being / noumena). 23 ‘manifests’ by dividing itself (into being): 2 ÷ 3 = .666 (the Beast). As 666 is to 32, so 23 is to the reverse of 666 that is 999. — The Beast ‘made flesh’ is a reflection or ingress of 23 / 999 (noumena) into phenomena as 32 / 666.
(Yes I am aware it might take reading it a few times to make sense of it.)
basically that through different Hebrew transliterations, he was able to derive the value 666 from his own name as “Aleister Crowley” and as “Aleister E. Crowley.” The Greek phrase
To Mega Therion
(“The Great Beast”) has the value of 666, as does the Greek word Therion (“Beast”) when transliterated into Hebrew as ThRIVN. The Hebrew word AChIHA (“The Beast”—the usual spelling is ChIVA) has the value 666 when spelled “in full,” i.e. ALP-ChITh-YVD-HH-ALP.
So of course the cherry on top of the icing (I like chocolate cake so we’ll go with that) 666 was the exhibit number attached to the Stele of Revealing in the Cairo Museum which he took to be a “heavenly” sign. Crowley also identified 666 with the Egyptian
neteru glyph, meaning “gods” or “spirits.” (The
neteru glyph is visible at the left end of the third horizontal register on the obverse of the Stele.) When written NVThIRV,
neteru has the value of 666. Finally, ANKH-F-N-KHONShU-T also has the value of 666.
So there u have a very complex answer for a somewhat “simple” number.
When Crowley was on the stand in a libel case, he was asked about his identification with the number 666. He replied, “It means merely sunlight. You may call me Little Sunshine.” (The man had a sense of
humour at least)
And just so that everyone knows, call it some useful trivia, 666 is the value of Shem Yeheshuah, i.e. “The Name
Jesus.”
So as luck would have it after the Beast had spend the better part of eight years walking across china with his wife and daughter (he had basically lost his mine with a very complicated idea that most people of enlightenment come across at some point or another) he found, after coming back to his senses (for want of a better phrase) that is, that his “new ritual” to invoke the Holy Guardian Angel (which he came upon during loosing his mind) in 1906 was the most closely-guarded secret of the
OrdoTempliOrientis.OrdoTempliOrientis, a secret Masonic group tracing direct decent from the Knights Templar (don’t they just keep cropping up).
(He had of course already been a member of the esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn – initiates are initiated in the Masonic fashion but women were admitted on an equal basis – although he did not get along with many of its member like the Poet W.B. Yeats.)
He was asked, that since he knew their most closely guarded secret, to become a member of the O.T.O at the 9
th degree (i.e. a head of the orginisation) at this time he was already 33rd degree member of the Freemasons.
the Beast wrote in his Confessions.
“Now the O.T.O. is in possession of one supreme secret. The whole of its systems… was directed towards communicating to its members, by progressively plain hints, this all-important instruction. I personally believe that if this secret, which is a scientific secret, were perfectly understood, as it is not even by me after more than twelve years’ almost constant study and experiment, there would be nothing which the human imagination can conceive that could not be realized in practice.”
Israel Regardie, the Beast’s most perceptive biographer, comes close to revealing the secret in a book called
The Tree of Life.However, he remarks that the method in question is “so liable to indiscriminate abuse and use in Black Magic
that it is not safe to reveal it directly”; he therefore employs a symbolism which, like a Zen riddle, can be decoded only after one had achieved certain spiritual insights. This is of course linked to Crowely’s statement that he sacrificed 150 children daily. A statement which added to his reputation of being a Satanist and of being supremely wicked. I will explain this statement soon but hopefully you’ll figure it out before then.
Charles Manson understood at least part of this Arcanum of Arcanums; his misuse of it is a classic example of the danger warned of by Crowley in
Liber O: “he will be the slave of illusion and the prey of madness… His Ego will expand unchecked, till he seem to himself to have heaven at his feet…
“
He also had a word about Evil for us – the Beast’s frequent reference to “explore every possibility of the Self
” and realize your True Will etc. have often been misunderstood, especially when quoted out of context, in which case he sounds battier than those armchair enthusiasts of mayhem and murder,
Stirner and Nietzsche and Sorel. But neither was the
Beast an armchair philosopher, but rather an explorer, mountain-climber and big-game hunter who knew violence and sudden death well enough to call them by their first names; he did not romanticize them. Here are his actual instructions about Evil from
Liber V, an instruction manual of the A.A.:
“The Magician should devise for himself a definite technique for destroying “evil.” The essence of such practice will consist in training the mind and body to confront things which cause fear, pain, disgust, shame and the like. He must learn to endure them, then to become indifferent to them, then to analyze them until they give pleasure and instruction, and finally to appreciate them for their own sake, as aspects of Truth. When this has been done, he should abandon them if they are really harmful in relation to health or comfort…Again, one might have a liaison with an ugly old woman until one beheld and love the star which she is; it would be too dangerous to overcome this distaste for dishonesty by forcing oneself to pick pockets. Acts which are essentially dishonorable must not be done; they should be justified only by calm contemplation of their correctness in abstract cases.”
Digest carefully that last sentence. These shrewd and pragmatic counsels are not those of a bloody-minded fool.
The Morning of the Magicians by Pauwels and Bergier was a best-seller, so we assume that many readers are aware of the strange evolution of some forms of
Rosicrucianism and
Illuminism in 19th Century Germany.Such Readers are aware that there is certain evidence – not a little evidence, but a great deal of it – indicating that Adolph Hitler joined something called the
Thule Society in Munich in 1923, and then later obtained admission to its inner circle, the
Illuminated Lodge, and that it was here he acquired certain ideas about the value of human sacrifice. It is, in fact, not only possible but probable that the attempted extermination of European Jewry was not only the act of insane racism but a religious offering to gods who demanded rivers of human blood. The same psychology possessed by the Aztecs toward the end of their civilization. The omens, the oracles, the astrological
skryings
all pointed to doom, and the blood sacrifices correspondingly multiplied exponentially, hysterically, incredibly… and south in Yucatan much earlier, the Mayans, who always tried to restrict the blood sacrifice to one or two a year, deserted their cities for an unknown reason and fled back to the jungle; they shared the same astrological beliefs as the Aztecs, and it is plausible to suggest that they ran away from a similar oracle telling them that only more blood could preserve the empire.
In fact – let us note this only for the benefit of future students of paranoia – a similar theory about our own glorious rulers has sometimes crossed many of our mind (come on admit it).Why not? Every time an S-M club is raided by the fuzz, the newspapers mutter vaguely that among the clientele were “prominent” and “high-placed” individuals; and don’t ever tell me, Clyde, that those birds actually believe the milk-water “liberal” Judeo-Christian faith that they mouth in their public speeches. Right?
“Many gods demand blood” the Beast once commented sardonically – “especially the Christian god
.”
And, yes, there is a link between Crowley and Hitler. Just in case you were wondering were I was headed with this. (Douglas Hunt, the Beast’s most hysterically unfair critic said so in his
Exploring the Occult, and he was closer to the bullseye than the Beast’s admirers.)There is a link, but it is relationship of reciprocity, for Hitler and Crowley are the reverse of each other. Thus (and now we plunge to the heart of the riddle) here are the mind-bending, gut-turning words from Chapter XII, “Of the Bloody Sacrifice and Matters Cognate,” in
Magick in Theory and Practice
:
“In any case it was the theory of ancient Magicians that any living being is a storehouse of energy varying in quantity according to the size and health of the animal and in quality according to its mental and moral character. At the death of the animal this energy is liberated suddenly. For the highest spiritual working one must accordingly
choose that victim which contains the greatest and purest force. A male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence is the most satisfactory and suitable victim.”
(so now you are also aware where animal sacrifice comes from and burnt offering that are noted in the bible)
A footnote is appended here, not at the end of this sentence but attached to the word “intelligence.” This footnote is perhaps the most famous sentence the Beast ever wrote, the footnote reads:
It appears from the Magical Records of Frater Perdurabo (i.e., Crowley himself) that He made this particular sacrifice on an average about 150 times every year between 1912
e.v. and 1928
e.v.
This certainly seems clear, and horrible, enough, but the chapter concludes with the following further remarks:
“You are also likely to get in trouble over this chapter unless you truly comprehend its meaning…The whole idea of the word Sacrifice, as commonly understood, rests upon an error and superstition, and is unscientific. Let the young Magician reflect upon the conservation of Matter and of Energy…There is a traditional saying that whenever an Adept seems to have made a straightforward, comprehensible statement, then it is most certain that He means something entirely different…The radical error of all
uninitiates is that they define “self” as irreconcilably opposed to “not-self.” Each element of oneself is, on the contrary, sterile and without meaning, until it fulfils itself, by “love under will,” in its counterpart in the Macrocosm. To separate
oneself from others is to lose that self – its sense of separateness – in the other.”
The chapter, is called “Of the Bloody Sacrifice: and Matters Cognate,” and the Beast was a precise, almost pathologically sensitive, stylist. If the whole discussion was about the “
bloody sacrifice
,” where the heck are the “matters cognate“?And why does the footnote modify “male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence
” instead of the last word in the sentence, “victim”?
So let us review: The Beast originally failed in the invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel; his final success came after:
(a) his success in both the physical and mental disciplines of yoga.
(b) the achievement of accomplished skill in astral voyaging, and
(c) the death of the mind (going batty) in China, after which he himself became “a little child;” the new ritual which successfully invoked the Angel in 1906 was the same which the
Ordo
Templi Orientis had kept as a secret for unknown centuries – presumably, other occult groups here and there, like the Beast, had also discovered it independently; because of his oath as a 9th degree member of the O.T.O., the Beast could not disclose it publicly; due to his love of both poetry and cabalism, we can be sure that the code in which he hints at it – the language of bloody sacrifice – would have some innate and existential (not merely accidental) correspondence with the true secret. Finally, the ritual seems somehow connected with “love under will” and losing (the) self – its sense of separateness – in the other.”
But I am sure some readers already know the secret (well I hope they’ve picked it up). Even outside the Manson Family, there is a lot of religious balling going on these days by people who have rediscovered part of the ritual of Isis; what the Beast was teaching was nothing as facile as this. So let me give you u some more information maybe you’ll get it before I spell it out. The following words from Chapter VII, “
The Formula of the Holy Graal,” in Magick are meant with dreadful literalness:
“The Cup is said to be full of the Blood of the Saints; that is, every ‘saint’ or magician must give the last drop of his life’s blood to that cup (in) the true Bridal of the Rosy Cross…
“It is a woman whose Cup must be filled. It is…the sacrifice of the Man, who transfers life to his descendents…For
it is his whole life that the Magus offers to Our Lady. The Cross is both Death and Generation, and it is on the Cross that the Rose blooms…”
others have guessed…
Well I hope they have but if not let me say this. People take this particular statement of Crowley’s way to literally. In truth he was very ‘Pro-life’, he did not consider abortion a choice a women should make at all. He felt that if society would leave a woman to her own choice and devices, then a woman would rarely chose to abort (we take this to mean the stigma attached to an unwed mother).
But for those who might still be confused…
Many of the rituals used by ….certain groups include the invokation/ evokation through the sexual act between a man and a woman. The height of the ceremony or magical practice is achieved through the climax of the two participants (with an audience of course). The sacrifice Crowley was referring to was the ejaculation of semen. Yes yes I know an odd way to think of it, if your reason it this way. It is the man that must make the sacrifice of the ‘self’ and the woman’s cup that must be fill (please don’t make me spell it out) and Crowley reasoned that once semen left the body it was no longer a part of the ‘self’, a part of him. It was a separate entity that could have resulted in human life. Something else that most people do not know is that some cultures believed that when man reaches climax and it resulted in the release of sperm he died little each time.
In truth Crowley loved publicity, any publicity for that matter even if it was negative publicity. I think that when one sits down and studies some of the things he said publicly we would find that it was in many ways just to arouse controversy.
Even with his death no two autobiographers could agree on way he dead. Especially when one learns that twenty four hours after Crowley’s death his last doctor also died very mysteriously. Apparently, Crowley was on Heroin for pain, he refused to renew the prescriptions for the Beast and shortly after he “dropped dead”.
Friends and disciples celebrated his funeral with a Black Mass: or so the newspapers said. Actually it was a Gnostic Catholic Mass, it was certainly not an orthodox Roman Catholic or Anglican mass, I mean,
the priestess took off her clothes in one part of it – as in buck naked!
So the town council had a meeting – this was the Ridge, in Hastings, England, 1947, not 1347 – and they passed an ordinance that no such heathen rites would ever be tolerated in any funeral services in their town, not
never.
If there is a central lesson to be learned from the Beast, it is not really Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law
, which has been around since Rabelais; not even the more profound and gnomic
Every man and every woman is a Star; not even the formula of the Perfect Orgasm!; it is rather his humour, his scepticism, his irony that revelled in the title of Beast and, even, at times, Ass; the rationality that warned against becoming “the prey of madness” by trusting one’s visions too quickly, and the common sense which said that, even if good and evil are identical on the Absolute plane, a man operating on the relative plane simply doesn’t enjoy a toothache or invent rationalizations to pick a brother’s pocket; the solemn warning that the sacrament is not completed until the Magician offers “the last drop of his life’s blood” to the Cup, and dies; but, above all these, the simple historical record which reveals that with all the ardour, all the dedication, all the passion he possessed, it still took eight years (including four months’ madness) before he broke down the wall that separates Ego from the true Self and that Self from the Universe.
So yes although this started out as a long into summoning I just had to share some of the “interesting thing” that can be discovered if you are truly willing to look. And some of the links that will emerge over the next few posts might surprise you. So on to the meat and potatoes…..
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