220A1-0.ASC

Title.

    In the first edition this Book is called L.  L is the sacred letter
in the Holy Twelve-fold Table which forms the triangle that stabilizes
the Universe. See Liber 418. L is the letter of Libra, Balance, and
`Justice' in the Taro. This title should probably be AL, ``El'', as the
`L' was heard of the Voice of Aiwaz, not seen. AL is the true name of
the Book, for these letters, and their number 31, form the Master Key to
its Mysteries.

    In order that the ethical and philosophical comment should be
`understanded of the common people', without interruption, I have
decided to transfer to an Appendix all considerations drawn from the
numerical system of cipher which is interspersed with the more
straightforward matter of this Book. In that Appendix will be found an
account of the character of this cipher, called `Qabalah', and the
mysteries thus indicated; because of the impracticability of
communicating them in verbal form, and of the necessity of proving to
the student that the Author of the Book is possessed of knowledge beyond
any yet acquired by man.

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         1.    The theogony of our Law is entirely scientific, Nuit is
         Matter, Hadit is Motion, in their full physical sense.* They
         are the Tao and Teh of Chinese Philosophy; or, to put it very
         simply, the Noun and Verb in grammar. Our central Truth --
         beyond other philosophies -- is that these two infinities
         cannot exist apart. This extensive subject must be studied in
         our other writings, notably Berashith, my own Magical
         Diaries, especially those of 1919, 1920 and 1921, and The
         Book of Wisdom or Folly. See also `The Soldier and the
         Hunchback'. Further information concerning Nuit and Hadit is
         given in the course of this Book; but I must here mention
         that the Brother mentioned in connexion with the `Wizard
         Amalantrah' etc. (Samuel bar Aiwaz) identifies them with ANU
         and ADAD the supreme Mother and Father deities of the
         Sumerians. Taken in connexion with the AIWAZ identification,
         this is very striking indeed. It is also to be considered
         that Nu is connected with North, while Had is Sad, Set,
         Satan, Sat (equals `Being' in Sanskrit), South. He is then
         the Sun, one point concentring Space, as also is any other
         star. The word ABRAHADABRA is from Abrasax, Father Sun, which
         adds to 365. For the North-South antithesis see Fabre
         d'Olivet's Hermeneutic Interpretation of the Origin of the
         Social State in Man. Note `Sax' also as a Rock, or Stone,
         whence the symbol of the Cubical Stone, the Mountain
         Abiegnus, and so forth. Nu is also reflected in Naus, Ship,
         etc., and that whole symbolism of Hollow Space which is
         familiar to all. There is also a question of identifying Nu
         with On, Noah, Oannes, Jonah, John, Dianus, Diana, and so on.
         But these identifications are all partial only, different
         facets of the Diamond Truth. We may neglect all these
         questions, and remain in the simplicity of this Her own Book.

         2.    This explains the general theme of this revelation:
         gives the Dramatis Personae, so to speak.  It is
         cosmographically, the conception of the two Ultimate Ideas;
         Space, and That which occupies Space.  It will however appear
         later that these two ideas may be resolved into one, that of
         Matter; with Space, its `Condition' or `form', included
         therein. This leaves the idea of `Motion' for Hadit, whose
         interplay with Nuit makes the Universe.  Time should perhaps
         be considered as a particular kind or dimension of Space.*
         Further, this verse is to be taken with the next. The
         `company of heaven' is the assertion of the independent
         godhead of every man and every woman!  Further, as Khabs (see
         verse 8) is `Star', there is a further meaning; this Book is
         to reveal the Secret Self of a man, i.e. to initiate him.

         3.    This thesis is fully treated in The Book of Wisdom or
         Folly. Its main statement is that each human being is an
         Element of the Cosmos, self-determined and supreme, co-equal
         with all other Gods.  From this the Law `Do what thou wilt'
         follows logically. One star influences another by attraction,
         of course; but these are incidents of self-predestined
         orbits. There is however a mystery of the planets, revolving
         about a star of whom they are parts; but I shall not discuss
         it fully in this place.  Man is the Middle Kingdom The Great
         Kingdom is Heaven, with each star as an unit; the Little
         Kingdom is the Molecule, with each Electron as an unit. (The
         Ratio of these three is regularly geometrical, each being
         10^2 times greater in size than its neighbour.) See `The Book
         of the Great Auk' for the demonstration that each `star' is
         the Centre of the Universe to itself, and that a `star'
         simple, original, absolute, can add to its omnipotence,
         omniscience and omnipresence without ceasing to be itself;
         that its one way to do this is to gain experience, and that
         therefore it enters into combinations in which its true
         Nature is for awhile disguised, even from itself.
         Analogously, an atom of carbon may pass through myriad
         Proteus-phases, appearing in Chalk, Chloroform, Sugar, Sap,
         Brain and Blood, not recognizable as `itself' the black
         amorphous solid, but recoverable as such, unchanged by its
         adventures.  This theory is the only one which explains why
         the Absolute limited itself, and why It does not recognize
         Itself during its cycle of incarnations. It disposes of
         `Evil' and the Origin of Evil; without denying Reality to
         `Evil', or insulting our daily observation and our common
         sense.  I here quote (with one or two elucidatory insertions)
         the original note originally made by Me on this subject.

         May 14, 1919, 6.30 p.m.  All elements must at one time have
         been separate -- that would be the case with great heat. Now
         when atoms get to the sun, when we get to the sun, we get
         that immense, extreme heat, and all the elements are
         themselves again. Imagine that each atom of each element
         possesses the memory of all his adventures in combination. By
         the way, that atom, fortified with that memory, would not be
         the same atom; yet it is, because it has gained nothing from
         anywhere except this memory. Therefore, by the lapse of time
         and by virtue of memory, a thing (although originally an
         Infinite Perfection) could become something more than itself;
         and thus a real development is possible. One can then see a
         reason for any element deciding to go through this series of
         incarnations (God, that was a magnificent conception!)
         because so, and only so, can he go; and he suffers the lapse
         of memory of His own Reality of Perfection which he has
         during these incarnations, because he knows he will come
         through unchanged.  Therefore you have an infinite number of
         gods, individual and equal though diverse, each one supreme
         and utterly indestructible. This is also the only explanation
         of how a being could create a world in which war, evil, etc.
         exist. Evil is only an appearance because, like `good', it
         cannot affect the substance itself, but only multiply its
         combinations. This is something the same as mystic monism,
         but the objection to that theory is that God has to create
         things which are all parts of himself, so that their
         interplay is false. If we presuppose many elements, their
         interplay is natural. It is no objection to this theory to
         ask who made the elements -- the elements are at least there;
         and God, when you look for him, is not there. Theism is
         obscurum per obscurus. A male star is built from the
         circumference inwards. This is what is meant when we say that
         woman has no soul. It explains fully the difference between
         the sexes.

         4.    This is a great and holy mystery. Although each star
         has its own number, each number is equal and supreme. Every
         man and every woman is not only a part of God, but the
         Ultimate God. `The Centre is everywhere and the circumference
         nowhere'. The old definition of God takes new meaning for us.
         Each one of us is the One God. This can only be understood by
         the initiate; one must acquire certain high states of
         consciousness to appreciate it.  I have tried to put it
         simply in the note to the last verse. I may add that in the
         Trance called by me the `Star-Sponge' -- see note to v. 59 --
         this apprehension of the Universe is seen as an astral
         Vision. It began as `Nothingness with Sparkles' in 1916 E.V.
         by Lake Pasquaney in New Hampshire, U.S.A. and developed into
         fullness on various subsequent occasions. Each `Star' is
         connected directly with every other star, and the Space being
         Without Limit (Ain Soph) the Body of Nuith, and one star is
         as much the Centre as any other. Each man instinctively feels
         that he is the Centre of the Cosmos, and philosophers have
         jeered at his presumption. But it was he that was precisely
         right. The yokel is no more `petty' than the King, nor the
         earth than the Sun. Each simple elemental Self is supreme,
         Very God of Very God. Ay, in this Book is Truth almost
         insufferably splendid, for Man has veiled himself too long
         from his own glory: he fears the abyss, the ageless Absolute.
         But Truth shall make him free!

         5.    Here Nuit appeals, simply and directly, recognizing the
         separate function of each Star of her Body. Though all is
         One, each part of that One has its own special work, each
         Star its particular Orbit.  In addressing me as warrior lork
         of Thebes, it appears as if She perceived a certain
         continuity or identity of myself with Ankh-f-n-khonsu, Stele
         is the Link with Antiquity of this Revelation. See the
         equinox I(7), pp. 363-400a, for the account of this event.
         The unveiling is the Proclamation of the Truth previously
         explained, that the Body of Nuith occupies Infinite Space, so
         that every Star thereof is Whole in itself, an independent
         and absolute Unit. They differ as Carbon and Calcium differ,
         but each is a simple `immortal' Substance, or at least a form
         of some simpler Substance. Each soul is thus absolute, and
         `good' or `evil' are merely terms descriptive of relations
         between destructible combinations. Thus Quinine is `good' for
         a malarial patient, but `evil' for the germ of the disease.
         Heat is `bad' for ice-cream and `good' for coffee. The
         indivisible essence of things, their `souls', are indifferent
         to all conditions soever, for none can in any way affect
         them.

         7.    Aiwass is the name given by Ouarda the Seer as that of
         the Intelligence Communicating. See note to Title.
         Hoor-paar-Kraat or Harpocrates, the `Babe in the Egg of
         Blue', is not merely the God of Silence in a conventional
         sense. He represents the Higher Self, the Holy Guardian
         Angel. The connexion is with the symbolism of the Dwarf in
         Mythology. He contains everything in Himself, but is
         unmanifested. See II:8.  He is the First Letter of the
         Alphabet, Aleph, whose number is One, and his card in the
         Tarot is The Fool, numbered Zero. Aleph is attributed to the
         `Element' (in the old classification of things) of Air.   Now
         as `One or Aleph he represents the Male Principle, the First
         Cause, and the free breath of Life, the sound of the vowel A
         being made with the open throat and mouth.  As Zero he
         represents the femal Principle, the fertile Mother. (An old
         name for the card is Mat, from the Italian `Matto', fool, but
         earlier also from Maut, the Egyptian Vulture-
         Mother-Goddess). Fertile, for the `Egg of Blue' is the
         Uterus, and in the Macrocosm the Body of Nuith, and it
         contains the Unborn Babe, helpless yet protected and
         nourished against the crocodiles and tigers shown on the
         card, just as the womb is sealed during gestation. He sits on
         a lotus, the yoni, which floats on the `Nile', the amniotic
         fluid. In his absolute innocence and ignorance he is `The
         Fool'; he is the `Saviour', being the Son who shall trample
         on the crocodiles and tigers, and avenge his father Osiris.
         Thus we see him as the `Great Fool' of Celtic legend, the
         `Pure Fool' of Act I of Parsifal, and, generally speaking,
         the insane person whose words have always been taken for
         oracles.  But to be `Saviour' he must be born and grow to
         manhood; thus Parsifal acquires the Sacred Lance, emblem of
         virility. He usually wears the `Coat of many colours' like
         Joseph the `dreamer'; so he is also now the Green Man of
         spring festivals. But his `folly' is now not innocence but
         inspiration of wine; he drinks from the Graal, offered to him
         by the Priestess.  So we see him fully armed as Bacchus
         Diphues, male and female in one, bearing the Thyrsus-rod, and
         a cluster of grapes or a wineskin, while a tiger leaps up by
         his side. This form is suggested in the Taro card, where `The
         fool' is shown with a long wand and carrying a sack; his coat
         is motley. Tigers and Crocodiles follow him, thus linking
         this image with that of Harpocrates.  Almost identical
         symbols are those of the secret God of the Templars, the
         bi-sexual Baphomet, and of Zeus Arrhenothelus, equally
         bi-sexual, the Father-Mother of All in One Person. (He is
         shown in this full form in the Tarot Trump XV, `the Devil'.)
         Now Zeus being lord of Air, we are reminded that Aleph is the
         letter of Air.  As Air we find the `Wandering Fool' pure
         wanton Breath, yet creative. Wind was supposed of old to
         impregnate the Vulture, which therefore was chosen to
         symbolize the Mother-Goddess.  He is the Wandering Knight or
         Prince of Fairy Tales who marries the King's Daughter. This
         legend is derived from certain customs among exogamic tribes,
         for which see The Golden Bough.  Thus one Europa, Semele and
         others claimed that Zeus -- Air* -- had enjoyed them in the
         form of a beast, bird, or what not; while later Mary
         attributed her condition to the agency of a Spirit --
         Spiritus, breath, or air -- in the shape of a dove.  But the
         `Small Person' of Hindu mysticism, the Dwarf insane yet
         crafty of many legends in many lands, is also this same `Holy
         Ghost', or Silent Self of a man, or his Holy Guardian Angel.
         He is almost the `Unconscious' of Freud, unknown,
         unaccountable, the silent Spirit, blowing `whither it
         listeth, but thou canst not tell whence it cometh or whither
         it goeth'. It commands with absolute authority when it
         appears at all, despite conscious reason and judgment.
         Aiwass is then, as this verse 7 states, the `minister' of
         this Hoor-paar-Kraat, that is of the Saviour of the World in
         the larger sense, and of mine own `Silent Self' in the
         lesser. A `minister' is one who performs a service, in this
         case evidently that of revealing; He was the intelligible
         medium between the Babe God -- the New Aeon about to be born
         -- and myself. This Book of the Law is the Voice of his
         Mother, His Father, and Himself. But on His appearing, He
         assumes the active form twin to Harpocrates, that of
         Ra-Hoor-Khuit. The Concealed Child becomes the Conquering
         Child, the armed Horus avenging his father Osiris. So also
         our own Silent Self, helpless and witless, hidden within us,
         will spring forth, if we have craft to loose him to the
         Light, spring lustily forward with his cry of Battle, the
         Word of our True Wills.  This is the Task of the Adept, to
         have the Knowledge and Conversation of His Holy Guardian
         Angel, to become aware of his nature and his purpose,
         fulfilling them.  Why is Aiwass thus spelt, when Aiwaz is the
         natural transliteration of [...]? Perhaps because he was not
         content with identifying Himself with Thelema, Agape, etc. by
         the number 93, but wished to express his nature by six
         letters (Six being the number of the Sun, the God-Man, etc.)
         whose value in Greek should be A=1, I=10, F=6, A=1, S=200,
         S=200: total 418, the number of Abrahadabra, the Magical
         Formula of the new Aeon! Note that I and V are the letters of
         the Father and the Son, also of the Virgin and the Bull, (See
         Liber 418) protected on either side by the letter of AIR, and
         followed by the letter of Fire twice over.

         8.    We are not to regard ourselves as base beings, without
         whose sphere is Light or `God'. Our minds and bodies are
         veils of the Light within. The uninitiate is a `Dark Star',
         and the Great Work for him is to make his veils transparent
         by `purifying' them. This `purification' is really
         `simplification'; it is not that the veil is dirty, but that
         the complexity of its folds makes it opaque. The Great Work
         therefore consists principally in the solution of complexes.
         Everything in itself is perfect, but when things are muddled,
         they become `evil'. (This will be understood better in the
         Light of `The Hermit of Esopus Island', q.v.) The Doctrine is
         evidently of supreme importance, from its position as the
         first `revelation' of Aiwass. This `star' or `Inmost Light'
         is the original, individual, eternal essence. The Khu is the
         magical garment which it weaves for itself, a `form' for its
         Being Beyond Form, by use of which it can gain experience
         through self-consciousness, as explained in the note to
         verses 2 and 3. This Khu is the first veil, far subtler than
         mind or body, and truer; for its symbolic shape depends on
         the nature of its Star.  Why are we told that the Khabs is in
         the Khu, not the Khu in the Khabs? Did we then suppose the
         converse? I think that we are warned against the idea of a
         Pleroma, a flame of which we are Sparks, and to which we
         return when we `attain'. That would indeed be to make the
         whole curse of separate existence ridiculous, a senseless and
         inexcusable folly. It would throw us back on the dilemma of
         Manichaeism. The idea of incarnations `perfecting' a thing
         originally perfect by definition is imbecile. The only sane
         solution is as given previously, to suppose that the Perfect
         enjoys experience of (apparent) Imperfection. (There are
         deeper resolutions of this problem appropriate to the highest
         grades of initiation; but the above should suffice the
         average intelligence.)

         9.    We are to pay attention to this Inmost Light; then
         comes the answering Light of Infinite Space. Note that the
         Light of Space is what men call Darkness; its nature is
         utterly incomprehensible to our uninitiated minds. It is the
         `veils' mentioned previously in this comment that obstruct
         the relation between Nuit and Hadit.  We are not to worship
         the Khu, to fall in love with our Magical Image. To do this
         -- we have all done it -- is to forget our Truth. If we adore
         Form, it becomes opaque to Being, and may soon prove false to
         itself. The Khu in each of us includes the Cosmos as he knows
         it. To me, even another Khabs is only part of my Khu. Our own
         Khabs is our one sole Truth.

         10.    The nature of magical power is quite incomprehensible
         to the vulgar. The prophet Ezekiel besieging a tile in order
         to destroy Jerusalem, and the adventure of Hosea with Gomer,
         seem as absurd to the `practical' man as do the researches of
         any other scientific man until the Sunday Newspapers have
         furnished him with a plausible explanation which explains
         nothing. (Book 4, Part III, must be read in this connexion.)
         `My servants'; not those of the Lord of the Aeon. `The Law is
         for all'; there can be no secrecy about that. The verse
         refers to specially chosen `servants'; perhaps those who,
         worshipping the Khabs, have beheld Her light shed over them.
         Such persons indeed consummate the marriage of Nuit and Hadit
         in themselves; in that case they are aware of certain Ways to
         Power.  There is also a mystical sense in this verse. We are
         to organize our minds thoroughly, appointing few and secret
         chiefs, serving Nuit, to discipline the varied departments of
         the conscious thought.

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         12.    The whole doctrine of `love' is discussed in the Book
         Aleph (Wisdom or Folly) and should be studied therein. But
         note further how this Verse agrees with the comment above,
         how every Star is to come forth from its veils, that it may
         revel with the whole World of Stars. This is again also a
         call to unite or `love', thus formulating the Equation
         1(;mi1)=0*, which is the general magical formula in our
         Cosmos. `Come forth' -- from what are you hiding? `under the
         stars', that is, openly. Also, let love be `under' or `unto'
         the Body of Nuith. But above all, be open! What is this
         shame? Is Love Hideous, that men should cover him with lies?
         Is Love so sacred that others must not intrude? Nay, `under
         the stars', at night, what eye but theirs may see? Or, if one
         see, should not your worship wake the cloisters of his soul
         to echo sanctity for that so lovely a deed and gracious you
         have done?

         31.    All this talk about `suffering humanity' is
         principally drivel based on the error of transferring one's
         own psychology to one's neighbour. The Golden Rule is silly.
         If Lord Alfred Douglas (for example) did to others what he
         would like them to do to him, many would resent his action.
         The development of the Adept is by Expansion -- out to Nuit
         -- in all directions equally. The small man has little
         experience, little capacity for either pain or pleasure. The
         bourgeois is a clod, I know better (at least) than to suppose
         that to torture him is either beneficial or amusing to
         myself.  This thesis concerning compassion is of the most
         palmary importance in the ethics of Thelema. It is necessary
         that we stop, once for all, this ignorant meddling with other
         people's business. Each individual must be left free to
         follow his own path! America is peculiarly insane on these
         points. Her people are desperately anxious to make the
         Cingalese wear furs, and the Tibetans vote, and the whole
         world chew gum, utterly dense to the fact that most other
         nations, especially the French and British, regard `American
         institutions' as the lowest savagery, and forgetful or
         ignorant of the circumstance that the original brand of
         American freedom -- which really was Freedom -- contained the
         precept to leave other people severely alone, and thus
         assured the possibility of expansion on his own lines to
         every man.

         32.    It is proper to obey The Beast, because His Law is
         pure Freedom, and He will give NO command which is other than
         a Right Interpretation of this Freedom. But it is necessary
         for the development of Freedom itself to have an
         organization; and every organization must have a
         highly-centralized control. This is especially necessary in
         time of war, as even the so-called `democratic' nations have
         been taught by Experience, since they would not learn from
         Germany. Now this age is pre-eminently a `time of war', most
         of all now, when it is our Work to overthrow the slave-gods.
         The injunction `seek me only' is emphasized with an oath, and
         a special promise is made in connection with it. By seeking
         lesser ideals one makes distinctions, thereby affirming
         implicitly the very duality from which one is seeking to
         escape. Note also that `me' may imply the Greek MH, `not'.
         The word `only' might be taken as `[...]' with the number of
         156, that of the Secret Name BABALON of Nuith. There are
         presumably further hidden meanings in the key-word `all'.


         33.    Law, in the common sense of the word, should be a
         formulation of the customs of a people, as Euclid's
         propositions are the formulation of geometrical facts. But
         modern knavery conceived the idea of artificial law, as if
         one should try to square the circle by tyranny. Legislators
         try to force the people to change their customs, so that the
         `business men' whose greed they art bribed to serve may
         increase their profits. `Law' in Greek, is NOMOC, from NEM,
         and means strictly `anything assigned, that which one has in
         use or possession'; hence `custom, usage', and also `a
         musical strain'. The literal equivalence of NEM and the Latin
         NEMO is suggestive. In Hebrew, `Law' is ThORA and equivalent
         to words meaning `The Gate of the Kingdom' and `The Book of
         Wisdom'.

         34.    The Ordeals are at present carried out unknown to the
         Candidate by the secret Magick Power of The Beast. Those who
         are accepted by Him for initiation testify that these Ordeals
         are frequently independent of His conscious care. They are
         not, like the traditional ordeals, formal, or identical for
         all; the Candidate finds himself in circumstances which
         afford a real test of conduct, and compel him to discover his
         own nature, to become aware of himself by bringing his secret
         motives to the surface.  Some of the Rituals have been made
         accessible, that is, the Magical Formulae have been
         published. See The Rites of Eleusis, `Energized Enthusiasm',
         Book4, Part III, etc.  Note the reference to `not' and `all'.
         Also the word `known' contains the root GN, `to beget' and
         `to know'; while `concealed' indicates the other half of the
         Human Mystery.

         37.    Each star is unique, and each orbit apart; indeed,
         that is the corner-stone of my teaching, to have no standard
         goals or standard ways, no orthodoxies and no codes. The
         stars are not herded and penned and shorn and made into
         mutton like so many voters! I decline to be bellwether, who
         am born a Lion! I will not be collie, who am quicker to bite
         than to bark. I refuse the office of shepherd, who bear not a
         crook but a club.  Wise in your generation, ye sheep, art ye
         to scamper away bleating when your ears catch my roar on the
         wind! Are ye not tended and fed and protected -- until word
         come from the stockyard?  The lion's life for me! Let me live
         free, and die fighting!  Now one more point about the obeah
         and the wanga, the deed and the word of Magick.  Magick is
         the art of causing change in existing phenomena. This
         definition includes raising the dead, bewitching cattle,
         making rain, acquiring goods, fascinating judges, and all the
         rest of the programme. Good: but it also includes every act
         soever? Yes; I meant it to do so. It is not possible to utter
         word or do deed without producing the exact effect proper and
         necessary thereto. Thus Magick is the Art of Life itself.
         Magick is the management of all we say and do, so that the
         effect is to change that part of our environment which
         dissatisfies us, until it does so no longer. We `remould it
         nearer to the heart's desire.'  Magick ceremonies proper are
         merely organized and concentrated attempts to impose our Will
         on certain parts of the Cosmos. They are only particular
         cases of the general law.  But all we say and do, however
         casually, adds up to more, far more, than our most strenuous
         Operations. `Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take
         care of themselves.' Your daily drippings fill a bigger
         bucket than your geysers of magical effort. The `ninety and
         nine that safely lay in the shelter of the fold' have no
         organized will at all; and their character, built of their
         words and deeds, is only a garbage-heap.  Remember, also,
         that, unless you know what your true will is, you may be
         devoting the most laudable energies to destroying yourself.
         Remember that every word and deed is a witness to thought,
         that therefore your mind must be perfectly organized, its
         sole duty to interpret circumstances in terms of the Will so
         that speech and action may be rightly directed to express the
         Will appropriately to the occasion. Remember that every word
         and deed which is not a definite expression of your Will
         counts against it, indifference worse than hostility. Your
         enemy is at least interested in you: you may make him your
         friend as you never can do with a neutral. Remember that
         Magick is the Art of Life, therefore of causing change in
         accordance with Will; therefore its law is `love under will'
         , and its every movement is an act of love.  Remember that
         every act of `love under will' is lawful as such; but that
         when any act is not directed unto Nuith, who is here the
         inevitable result of the whole Work, that act is waste, and
         breeds conflict within you, so that `the kingdom of God which
         is within you' is torn by civil war.  To the beginner I would
         offer this programme.

                 1.Furnish your mind as completely as possible with
                   the knowledge of how to inspect and to control it.

                 2.Train your body to obey your mind, and not to
                   distract its attention.

                 3.Control your mind to devote itself wholly to
                   discover your true Will.

                 4.Explore the course of that Will till you reach its
                   source, your Silent Self.

                 5.Unite the conscious will with the true Will, and
                   the conscious Ego with the Silent Self. You must be
                   utterly ruthless in discarding any atom of
                   consciousness which is hostile or neutral.

                 6.Let this work freely from within, but heed not your
                   environment, lest you make difference between one
                   thing and another. Whatever it be, it is to be made
                   one with you by Love.

         41.    The first paragraph is a general statement or
         definition of Sin or Error. Any thing soever that binds the
         will, hinders it, or diverts it, is Sin. That is, Sin is the
         appearance of the Dyad. Sin is impurity.*  The remainder of
         the paragraph takes a particular case as an example. There
         shall be no property in human flesh. The sex- instinct is one
         of the most deeply-seated expressions of the will; and it
         must not be restricted, either negatively by preventing its
         free function, or positively by insisting on its false
         function.  What is more brutal than to stunt natural growth
         or to deform it?  What is more absurd than to seek to
         interpret this holy instinct as a gross animal act, to
         separate it from the spiritual enthusiasm without which it is
         so stupid as not even to be satisfactory to the persons
         concerned?  The sexual act is a sacrament of Will. To profane
         it is the great offence. All true expression of it is lawful;
         all suppression or distortion is contrary to the Law of
         Liberty. To use legal or financial constraint to compel
         either abstention or submission, is entirely horrible,
         unnatural and absurd. Physical constraint, up to a certain
         point, is not so seriously wrong; for it has its roots in the
         original sex-conflict which we see in animals, and has often
         the effect of exciting Love in his highest and noblest shape.
         Some of the most passionate and permanent attachments have
         begun with rape. Rome was actually founded thereon.
         Similarly, murder of a faithless partner is ethically
         excusable, in a certain sense; for there may be some stars
         whose Nature is extreme violence. The collision of galaxies
         is a magnificent spectacle, after all. But there is nothing
         inspiring in a visit to one's lawyer. Of course this is
         merely my personal view; a star who happened to be a lawyer
         might see things otherwise! Yet Nature's unspeakable variety,
         though it admits cruelty and selfishness, offers us not
         example of the puritan and the prig!  However, to the mind of
         Law there is an Order of Going; and a machine is more
         beautiful, save to the Small Boy, when it works than when it
         smashes. Now the Machine of Matter-Motion is an explosive
         machine, with pyrotechnic effects; but these are only
         incidentals.  Laws against adultery are based upon the idea
         that woman is a chattel, so that to make love to a married
         woman is to deprive the husband of her services. It is the
         frankest and most crass statement of a slave-situation. To
         us, every woman is a star. She has therefore an absolute
         right to travel in her own orbit. There is no reason why she
         should not be the ideal hausfrau, if that chance to be her
         will. But society has no right to insist upon that standard.
         It was, for practical reasons, almost necessary to set up
         such taboos in small communities, savage tribes, where the
         wife was nothing but a general servant, where the safety of
         the people depended upon a high birth-rate. But to-day woman
         is economically independent, becomes more so every year. The
         result is that she instantly asserts her right to have as
         many or as few men or babies as she wants or can get; and she
         defies the world to interfere with her. More power to her --
         elbow!  The War has seen this emancipation flower in four
         years. Primitive people, the Australian troops for example,
         are saying that they will not marry English girls, because
         English girls like a dozen men a week. Well, who wants them
         to marry? Russia has already formally abrogated marriage.
         Germany and France have tried to `save their faces' in a
         thoroughly Chinese manner, by `marrying' pregnant spinsters
         to dead soldiers!  England has been too deeply hypocritical,
         of course, to do more than `hush things up'; and is
         pretending `business as usual', though every pulpit is aquake
         with the clamour of bat-eyed bishops, squeaking of the awful
         immorality of everybody but themselves and their choristers.
         Englishwomen over 30 have the vote; when the young 'uns get
         it, good-bye to the old marriage system.  America has made
         marriage a farce by the multiplication and confusion of the
         Divorce Laws. A friend of mine who had divorced her husband
         was actually, three years later, sued by him for divorce!!!
         But America never waits for laws; her people go ahead. The
         emancipated, self-supporting American woman already acts
         exactly like the `bachelor-boy'. Sometimes she loses her
         head, and stumbles into marriage, and stubs her toe. She will
         soon get tired of the folly. She will perceive how imbecile
         it is to hamstring herself in order to please her parents, or
         to legitimatize her children, or to silence her neighbours.
         She will take the men she wants as simply as she buys a
         newspaper; and if she doesn't like the Editorials, or the
         Comic Supplement, it's only two cents gone, and she can get
         another.  Blind asses! who pretend that women are naturally
         chaste! The Easterns know better; all the restrictions of the
         harem, of public opinion, and so on, are based upon the
         recognition of the fact that woman is only chaste when there
         is nobody around. She will snatch the babe from its cradle,
         or drag the dog from its kennel, to prove the old saying:
         Natura abhorret a vacuo;. For she is the Image of the Soul of
         Nature, the Great Mother, the Great Whore.  It is to be well
         noted that the Great Women of History have exercised
         unbounded freedom in Love. Sappho, Semiramis, Messalina,
         Cleopatra, Ta Chhi, Pasiphae, Clytaemnaestra, Helen of Troy,
         and in more recent times Joan of Arc (by Shakespeare's
         account), Catherine II of Russia, Queen Elizabeth of England,
         George Sand. Against these we can put only Emily Bronte;um,
         whose sex-suppression was due to her environment, and so
         burst out in the incredible violence of her art, and the
         regular religious mystics, Saint Catherine, Saint Teresa, and
         so on, the facts of whose sex-life have been carefully
         camouflaged in the interests of the slave-gods. But, even on
         that showing, the sex- life was intense, for the writings of
         such women are overloaded with sexual expression passionate
         and perverted, even to morbidity and to actual hallucination.
         Sex is the main expression of the Nature of a person; great
         Natures are sexually strong; and the health of any person
         will depend upon the freedom of that function.  (See Liber
         CI, `de Lege Libellum', Cap. IV, in The Equinox III (1).)

         42.    `Manyhood bound and loathing.' An organized state is a
         free association for the common weal. My personal will to
         cross the Atlantic, for example, is made effective by
         co-operation with others on agreed terms. But the forced
         association of slaves is another thing.  A man who is not
         doing his will is like a man with cancer, an independent
         growth in him, yet one from which he cannot get free. The
         idea of self-sacrifice is a moral cancer in exactly this
         sense.   Similarly, one may say that not to do one's will is
         evidence of mental or moral insanity. When `duty points one
         way, and inclination the other', it is proof that you are not
         one, but two. You have not centralized your control. This
         dichotomy is the beginning of conflict, which may result in a
         Jekyll-Hyde effect. Stevenson suggests that man may be
         discovered to be a `mere polity' of many individuals. The
         sages knew it long since. But the name of this polity is
         Choronzon, mob rule, unless every individual is absolutely
         disciplined to serve his own, and the common, purpose without
         friction.  It is of course better to expel or destroy an
         irreconcilable. `If thine eye offend thee, cut it out.' The
         error in the interpretation of this doctrine has been that it
         has not been taken as it stands. It has been read: If thine
         eye offend some artificial standard of right, cut it out. The
         curse of society has been Procrustean morality, the ethics of
         the herd-men. One would have thought that a mere glance at
         Nature would have sufficed to disclose Her scheme of
         Individuality made possible by Order.

         220A1-3.ASC

         43.    The general meaning of this verse is that so great is
         the power of asserting one's right that it will not long be
         disputed. For by doing so one appeals to the Law. In practice
         it is found that people who are ready to fight for their
         rights are respected, and let alone. The slave-spirit invites
         oppression.

         44.    This verse is best interpreted by defining `pure will'
         as the true expression of the Nature, the proper or inherent
         motion of the matter, concerned. It is unnatural to aim at
         any goal. The student is referred to Liber LXV, Cap. II, v.
         24, and to the Tao Teh King. This becomes particularly
         important in high grades. One is not to do Yoga, etc., in
         order to get Samadhi, like a schoolboy or a shopkeeper; but
         for its own sake, like an artist.  `Unassuaged' means `its
         edge taken off by' or `dulled by'. The pure student does not
         think of the result of the examination.

         49.    This verse declares that the old formula of Magick --
         the Osiris-Adonis -Jesus-Marsyas-Dionysus-Attis-Et cetera
         formula of the Dying God -- is no longer efficacious. It
         rested on the ignorant belief that the Sun died every day,
         and every year, and that its resurrection was a miracle.  The
         Formula of the New Aeon recognizes Horus, the Child crowned
         and conquering, as God, the Sun; and about our System is the
         Ocean of Space. This formula is then to be based upon these
         facts. Our `Evil', `Error', `Darkness', `Illusion', whatever
         one chooses to call it, is simply a phenomenon of accidental
         and temporary separateness. If you are `walking in darkness',
         do not try to make the sun rise by self-sacrifice, but wait
         in confidence for the dawn, and enjoy the pleasures of the
         night meanwhile.  The general illusion is to the Equinox
         Ritual of the G.D. where the officer of the previous six
         months, representing Horus, took the place of the retiring
         Hierophant, who had represented Osiris.  Isa is the Legendary
         `Jesus', for which Canidian concoction the prescription is to
         be found in my book bearing that Title, Liber DCCCLXXXVIII.

         51.    The first section of this verse is connected with the
         second only by the word `therefore'. It appears to describe
         an initiation, or perhaps The initiation, in general terms. I
         would suggest that the palace is the `Holy House' or Universe
         of the Initiate of the New Law. The four gates are perhaps
         Light, Life, Love, Liberty -- see `De Lege Libellum'. Lapis
         Lazuli is a symbol of Nuit, Jasper of Hadit. The rare scents
         are possibly various ecstasies or Samadhis. Jasmine and Rose
         are Hieroglyphs of the two main Sacraments, while the emblems
         of death may refer to certain secrets of a well known
         exoteric school of initiation whose members, with the rarest
         exceptions, do not know what it is all about.  The question
         then arises as to whether the initiate is able to stand
         firmly in this Place of Exaltation. It seems to me as if this
         refers to the ascetic life, commonly considered as an
         essential condition of participation in these mysteries. The
         answer is that `there are means and means', implying that no
         one rule is essential. This is in harmony with our general
         interpretation of the Law; it has as many rules as there are
         individuals.  This word `therefore' is easy to understand. We
         are to enjoy life thoroughly in an absolutely normal way,
         exactly as all the free and great have always done. The only
         point to remember is that one is a `Member of the Body of
         God', a Star in the Body of Nuith. This being sure, we are
         urged to the fullest expansion of our several Natures, with
         special attention to those pleasures which not only express
         the soul, but aid it to reach the higher developments of that
         expression.  The act of Love is to the bourgeois (as the
         `Christian' is called now-a-days) a gross animal gesture
         which shames his boasted humanity. The appetite drags him at
         its hoofs; it tires him, disgusts him, diseases him, makes
         him ridiculous even in his own eyes. It is the source of
         nearly all his neuroses.  Against this monster he has devised
         two protections. Firstly, he pretends that it is a Fairy
         Prince disguised, and hangs it with the rags and tinsel of
         romance, sentiment, and religion. He calls it Love, denies
         its strength and truth, and worships this wax figure of him
         with all sorts of amiable lyrics and leers.  Secondly, he is
         so certain, despite all his theatrical-wardrobe-work, that it
         is a devouring monster, that he resents with insane ferocity
         the existence of people who laugh at his fears, and tell him
         that the monster he fears is in reality not a fire-breathing
         worm, but a spirited horse, well trained to the task of the
         bridle. They tell him not to be a gibbering coward, but to
         learn to ride. Knowing well how abject he is, the kindly
         manhood of the advice is, to him, the bitterest insult he can
         imagine, and he calls on the mob to stone the blasphemer. He
         is therefore particularly anxious to keep intact the bogey he
         so dreads; the demonstration that Love is a general passion,
         pure in itself, and the redeemer of all them that put their
         trust in Him, is to tear open the raw ulcer of his soul.  We
         of Thelema are not the slaves of Love. `Love under will' is
         the Law. We refuse to regard love as shameful and degrading,
         as a peril to body and soul. We refuse to accept it as the
         surrender of the divine to the animal; to us it is the means
         by which the animal may be made the Winged Sphinx which shall
         bear man aloft to the House of the Gods.  We are then
         particularly careful to deny that the object of love is the
         gross physiological object which happens to be Nature's
         excuse for it. Generation is a sacrament of the physical
         Rite, by which we create ourselves anew in our own image,
         weave in a new flesh-tapestry the Romance of our own Soul's
         History. But also Love is a sacrament of trans-substantiation
         whereby we initiate our own souls; it is the Wine of
         Intoxication as well as the Bread of Nourishment. `Nor is he
         for priest designed Who partakes only in one kind.'  We
         therefore heartily cherish those forms of Love in which no
         question of generation arises; ;we use the stimulating
         effects of physical enthusiasm to inspire us morally and
         spiritually. Experience teaches that passions thus employed
         do serve to refine and to exalt the whole being of man or
         woman. Nuith indicates the sole condition: `But always unto
         me.' The epicure is not a monster of gluttony, nor the
         amateur of Beethoven a `degenerate' from the `normal' man
         whose only music is the tom-tom. So also the poisons which
         shook the bourgeois are not indulgences, but purifications;
         the brute whose furtive lust demands that he be drunk and in
         darkness that he may surrender to his shame, and that he lie
         about it with idiot mumblings ever after, is hardly the best
         judge even of Phryne. How much less should he venture to
         criticize such men and women whose imaginations are so free
         from grossness that the element of attraction which serves to
         electrify their magnetic coil is independent of physical
         form? To us the essence of Love is that it is a sacrament
         unto Nuith, a gate of grace and a road of righteousness to
         Her High Palace, the abode of peerless purity whose lamps are
         the Stars. `As ye will.' It should be abundantly clear from
         the foregoing remarks that each individual has an absolute
         and indefeasible right to use his sexual vehicle in
         accordance with its own proper character, and that he is
         responsible only to himself. But he should not injure himself
         and his right aforesaid; acts invasive of another
         individual's equal rights are implicitly self-aggressions. A
         thief can hardly complain on theoretical grounds if he is
         himself robbed. Such acts as rape, and the assault or
         seduction of infants, may therefore be justly regarded as
         offences against the Law of Liberty, and repressed in the
         interests of that Law. It is also excluded from `as ye will'
         to compromise the liberty of another person indirectly, as by
         taking advantage of the ignorance or good faith of another
         person to expose that person to the constraint of sickness,
         poverty, social detriment, or childbearing, unless with the
         well-informed and uninfluenced free will of that person.  One
         must moreover avoid doing another injury by deforming his
         nature; ;for instance, to flog children at or near puberty
         may distort the sensitive nascent sexual character, and
         impress it with the stamp of masochism. Again, homosexual
         practices between boys may in certain cases actually rob them
         of their virility, psychically or even physically.  Trying to
         frighten adolescents about sex by the bogeys of Hell,
         Disease, and Insanity, may warp the moral nature permanently,
         and produce hypochondria or other mental maladies, with
         perversions of the enervated and thwarted instinct.
         Repression of the natural satisfaction may result in addition
         to secret and dangerous vices which destroy their victim
         because they are artificial and unnatural aberrations. Such
         moral cripples resemble those manufactured by beggars by
         compressing one part of the body so that it is compensated by
         a monstrous exaggeration in another part.  But on the other
         hand we have no right to interfere with any type of
         manifestation of the sexual impulse on a priori grounds. We
         must recognize that the Lesbian leanings of idle and
         voluptuous women whose refinement finds the grossness of the
         average male repugnant, are as inexpungably entrenched in
         Righteousness as the parallel pleasures of the English
         Aristocracy and Clergy whose aesthetics find women
         disgusting, and whose self-respect demands that love should
         transcend animal impulse, excite intellectual intimacy, and
         inspire spirituality by directing it towards an object whose
         attainment cannot inflict the degradation of domesticity, and
         the bestiality of gestation. Every one should discover, by
         experience of every kind, the extent and intention of his own
         sexual Universe. He must be taught that all roads are equally
         royal, and that the only question for him is `Which road is
         mine?' All details are equally likely to be of the essence of
         his personal plan, all equally `right' in themselves, his own
         choice of the one as correct as, and independent of, his
         neighbour's preference for the other.  He must not be ashamed
         or afraid of being homosexual if he happens to be so at
         heart; he must not attempt to violate his own true nature
         because public opinion, or mediaeval morality, or religious
         prejudice would wish he were otherwise. The oyster stays shut
         in his shell for all Darwin may say about his `low stage of
         evolution', or Puritans about his priapistic character, or
         idealists about his unfitness for civic government.  The
         advocates of homosexuality - primus inter pares, John
         Addington Symonds! -- hammer away like Hercules at the
         spiritual, social, moral, and intellectual advantages of
         cultivating the caresses of a comrade who combines Apollo
         with Achilles and Antinous at the expense of escaping from a
         Chimaera with Circe's head, Cleopatra's body, and Cressida's
         character.  Why can't they let one alone? I agree to agree; I
         only stipulate to be allowed to be inconsistent. I will
         confess their creed, so long as I may play the part of Peter
         until the cock crow thrice. They urge more strenuously still
         the claims of homosexuality to heal the hurts and horrors of
         humanity, almost the `complete cohort'. On this point I
         concur that they argue indiscutably, with sober sense to
         support and stress of suffering to spur them. They prove with
         Euler's exactness and Hinton's passion that heterosexuality
         entrains an infinity of ills; jealousies, abortions,
         diseases, infanticides, frauds, intrigues, quarrels, poverty,
         prostitution, persecution, idleness, self-indulgence, social
         stress, over-population, sex-antagonism. They show with
         Poincare's precision that Jesus and Paul struck at the heart
         of hell when they proclaimed marriage a scourge, and offered
         the testimony of John and Timothy to support the plea of
         Plato on behalf of paederastic passion. Out of the Court
         there slunk Mark Antony, his toga to his face, one of the
         legion of lost souls that woman had withered; behind him
         groped blind Samson, disinherited Adam, feeling his way along
         the table where they had piled countless papyri writ with
         woes of kings and sages woman-wrecked, and many a map of
         towns and temples torn and trampled beneath the feet of Love,
         their ashes smouldering still, and smoky with song to witness
         how Astarte's breath had kindled and consumed them.
         Extinguished empires owned that their doom was the device of
         Venus, her vengeance on virility.  By Paul sat Buddha
         smiling, Ananda's arm about his neck, while Mohammed paced
         the floor impatiently between two warrior comrades, his belt
         bearing an iron key, a whip and a sword, wherewith to limit
         women's liberty, their love their life, lest to his loss they
         lure him. The Beast is there also, aloof, attentive. He will
         not weigh the evidence in the balances of any particular kind
         of advantage. He will not admit any standard as adequate to
         assess the absolute. To him, the pettiest personal whimsy
         outweighs all wisdom, all philosophy, all private profit and
         all public prudence. The sexual obol of the meanest is
         stamped with the signature of his own sovereign soul, lawful
         and current coin no less than the gold talent of his
         neighbour. The derelict moon has the same right to drift
         round Earth as Regulus to blaze in the heart of the Lion.
         Collision is the only crime in the cosmos.  The Beast refuses
         therefore to assent to any argument as to the propriety of
         any fashion of formulating the soul in symbols of sex. A
         canon is no less deadly in love than in art or literature;
         its acceptance stifles style, and its enforcement
         extinguishes sincerity.  It is better for a person of
         heterosexual nature to suffer every possible calamity as the
         indirect environment-evoked result of his doing his true will
         in that respect than to enjoy health, wealth and happiness by
         means either of suppressing sex altogether, of debauching it
         to the service of Sodom or Gommorrah.  Equally it is better
         for the androgyne, the urning, or their feminine counterparts
         to endure blackmailers private and public, the terrors of
         police persecution, the disgust, contempt and loathing of the
         vulgar, and the self-torture of suspecting the peculiarity to
         be a symptom of a degenerate nature, than to wrong the soul
         by damning it to the hell of abstinence, or by defiling it
         with the abhorred embraces of antipathetic arms.  Every star
         must calculate its own orbit. All is Will, and yet all is
         Necessity. To swerve is ultimately impossible; to seek to
         swerve is  to suffer.  The Beast 666 ordains by His authority
         that every man, and every woman, and every
         intermediately-sexed individual, shall be absolutely free to
         interpret and communicate Self by means of any sexual
         practices soever, whether direct or indirect, rational or
         symbolic, physiologically, legally, ethically, or religiously
         approved or no, provided only that all parties to any act are
         fully aware of all implications and responsibilities thereof,
         and heartily agree thereto.  Moreover, the Beast 666 adviseth
         that all children shall be accustomed from infancy to witness
         every type of sexual act, as also the process of birth, lest
         falsehood fog, and mystery stupefy, their minds, whose error
         else might thwart and misdirect the growth of their
         subconscious system of soul-symbolism. `When, where, and with
         whom ye will.'  The phrase `with whom' has been practically
         covered by the comment on `as ye will'. One need no more than
         distinguish that the earlier phrase permits all manner of
         acts, the latter all possible partners. There would have been
         no Furies for Oedipus, no disaster for Othello, Romeo,
         Pericles of Tyre, Laon and Cythna, if it were only agreed to
         let sleeping dogs lie, and mind one's own business. In real
         life, we have seen in our own times Oscar Wilde, Sir Charles
         Dilke, Parnell, Canon Aitken and countless others, many of
         them engaged in first-rate work for the world, all wasted
         because the mob must make believe to be `moral'. This phrase
         abolishes the Eleventh Commandment, Not to be Found Out, by
         authorizing Incest, Adultery, and Paederasty, which every one
         now practices with humiliating precautions, which perpetuate
         the schoolboy's enjoyment of an escapade, and make shame,
         slyness, cowardice and hypocrisy the conditions of success in
         life.  It is also the fact that the tendency of any
         individual to sexual irregularity is emphasised by the
         preoccupation with the subject which follows its factitious
         importance in modern society.  It is to be observed that
         Politeness has forbidden any direct reference to the subject
         of sex to secure no happier result than to allow Sigmund
         Freud and others to prove that our every thought, speech, and
         gesture, conscious or unconscious, is an indirect reference!
         Unless one wants to wreck the neighbourhood, it is best to
         explode one's gunpowder in an unconfined space. There are
         very few cases of `perverted hunger-instinct' in moderately
         healthy communities. War restrictions on food created
         dishonest devices to procure dainties, and artificial
         attempts to appease the ache of appetite by chemical
         counterfeits.  The South-Sea Islanders, pagan, amoral and
         naked, are temperate lovers, free from hysterical `crimes of
         passion', sex obsessions, and puritan persecution-mania;
         perversion is practically unknown, and monogamy is the
         general custom.  Even the civilized psychopaths of cities,
         forced into every kind of excess by the omnipresence of
         erotic suggestions and the contact of crazed crowds seething
         with suppressed sexuality, are not wholly past physic. They
         are no sooner released from the persistent pressure by
         escaping to some place where the inhabitants treat the
         reproductive and the respiratory organs as equally innocent
         than they begin insensibly to forget their `fixed idea'
         forced on them by the fog-horn of Morality, so that their
         perversions perish, just as a coiled spring straightens
         itself when the external compulsion is removed. They revert
         to their natural sex-characters, which only in rare cases are
         other than simple, pure, and refined. More, sex itself ceases
         to play Principal Boy in the Pantomime of Life. Other
         interests resume their proper proportions.  We may now
         inquire why the Book is at pains to admit as to love `when'
         and `where' we will. Few people, surely, have been seriously
         worried by restrictions of time and place. One can only think
         of lovers who live with fearsome families or in inhospitable
         lodgings, on a rainy night, buffeted from one police-bullied
         hotel to another.  Perhaps this permission is intended to
         indicate the propriety of performing the sexual act without
         shame or fear, not waiting for darkness or seeking secrecy,
         but by daylight in public places, as serenely as if it were a
         natural incident in a morning stroll.  Custom would soon
         surfeit curiosity, and copulation attract less attention than
         a new fashion in frocks. For the existing interest in sexual
         matters is chiefly because, common as the act is, it is
         closely concealed. Nobody is excited by seeing others eat. A
         `naughty' book is as dull as a volume of sermons; only genius
         can vitalize either.  Beyond this, once love is taken for
         granted, the morbid fascination of its mystery will vanish.
         The pander, the prostitute, the parasite will find their
         occupation gone.  Disease will go straight to the doctor
         instead of to the quack, as it does; the altars of Mrs.
         Grundy run red with the blood of her faithful!  The ignorance
         or carelessness of a raw youth will no longer hound him to
         hell. A blighted career or a ruined constitution will no more
         be the penalty of a moment's exuberance.  Above all, the
         world will begin to appreciate the true nature of the sexual
         process, its physical insignificance as one among many parts
         of the body, its transcendent importance as the vehicle of
         the True Will and the first of the sheaths of the Self.
         Hitherto our sexual tabus have kept far ahead of Gilbert and
         Sullivan. We have made love the lackey to property, as who
         should pay his rent by sneezing. We have swaddled it in
         politeness, as who should warn God off the grass.  We have
         muddled it up with morality, as who should frown at the
         Himalayas on the one hand, and, on the other, regulate his
         behaviour by that of an ant-heap.  The Law of Thelema is
         here!     (It appears pertinent to add that the above ethical
         theories have stood the test of practice. Experiment shows
         that complete removal -- in the most radical manner -- of all
         the usual restrictions on conduct results, after a brief
         period of uneasiness of various kinds, in the subject
         dropping entirely into the background; the parties concerned
         became natural, and led what would conventionally be called
         `strictly moral' lives without even knowing that they were
         doing so.)  As - Postcript, let me contrast with the above
         theories two actual cases of Marriage as it is in England.
         No.1. Mr.W., a solicitor and gentleman farmer of considerable
         wealth: a Plymouth Brother. Called, in Southsea, Hants.,
         where he practised: `The Honest Lawyer.' Every time that his
         wife gave birth to a child, or miscarried, she lay for weeks
         -- often months -- between life and death, with perityphlitis
         or peritonitis set up by the difficulties of parturition. Yet
         this man, knowing this well, had gone on and on
         remorselessly. When I knew him he had 18 children living, and
         two more were born during that period. It was evidently his
         view that he had an absolute Right to impregnate his wife,
         and that it was her business whether she lived or died.
         During all these years she was no sooner well enough to leave
         her bed than she was again `in the family way'. Thus in 25
         years, she was never permitted so much as a month's good
         health. This Mr. W. was a most kindly genial man, devoted to
         her and his family, genuinely pious and tenderhearted. But it
         never occured to him to refrain from exercising the Right
         which he possessed to endanger her life every year. (He
         suffered intensely with anxiety for his wife's health.)
         No.2. Mr. H., a very skilful engraver and die-sinker, a man
         of refined tastes and delicate feelings, sensitive beyond the
         common even of men in a far higher station of life and with a
         much better education. Since childhood he had suffered
         continually from an incurable form of Psoriasis. This kept
         him in a state of  almost constant irritation, spoilt his
         sleep, and made him lament that he was `a leper'. In fact,
         the scales of the eruption were so plentiful that his sheets
         had to be cleaned every morning with a dustpan and brush! He
         could only obtain relief (before trying to sleep) by being
         rubbed with oil of wintergreen, which filled his whole house
         with a loathsome ,stench. One would have thought that the
         first wish of a man thus afflicted would be to sleep alone,
         that it would be utterly repugnant and revolting to him to
         sleep with another person, for his own sake, apart from and
         consideration for her. But his wife, herself an invalid -- a
         huge obese greasy woman (of middle age when I knew the
         family) suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, tubercular
         trouble in the arms, etc., etc. -- was his Wife, she must be
         immediately available should Mr. H. want to exercise his
         conjugal Right. (In this case, too, Mrs. H. was likely to die
         if impregnated.) The extraordinary feature is that so
         extremely sensitive and refined a man could be so
         disgustingly callous on such a matter. Even vulgar people
         fear to appear physically repulsive to the person whom they
         love. It seems as if the fact of Marriage destroys every
         natural characteristic, and has a set of rules of its own
         diametrically opposed in spirit and letter to those which
         govern Love. I confidently appeal to impartial observers to
         say whether the ideals of the Book are not cleaner, more
         wholesome, more human, and more truly moral than those of
         Marriage as it is.

[text between the end of commentary on verse 51 and mid-portion of 52 
 called "220A1-4.ASC" missing]

         220A1-5.ASC

              For instance: a man seeking to regain health should
         assist his Magical Will by taking all possible hygenic and
         medical measures proper to amend his malady. A man wishing to
         develop his genius as a sculptor will devote himself to study
         and training, will surround himself with beautiful forms,
         and, if possible, live in a place where nature herself
         testifies to the touch of the thumb of the Great Architect.
         He will choose the object of his passion at the nod of his
         Silent Self. He will not allow the prejudice, either of
         sense, emotion, or rational judgement, to obscure the Sun of
         his Soul. In the first place, mutual magnetism, despite the
         masks of mind, should be unmistakable. Unless it exists, a
         puissant purity of passion, there is no Magical basis for the
         Sacrament. Yet, such magnetism is only the first condition.
         Where two people become intimate, each crisis of satisfaction
         between the terminals leaves them in a proximity which
         demands mutual observation; and the intense clarity of the
         mind which results from the discharge of the electric force
         makes such observation abnormally critical. The higher the
         type of mind, the more certain this is, and the greater the
         danger of finding some antipathetic trifle which experience
         tells us will one day be the only thing left to observe; just
         as a wart on the nose is remembered when the rest of the face
         is forgotten.  The object of Love must therefore be one with
         the lover in something more than the Will to unite
         magnetically; it must be in passionate partnership with the
         Will of which the Will-to- love is only the Magical symbol.
         Perhaps no two wills can be identical, but at least they can
         be so sympathetic that the manifestations are not likely to
         clash. It is not enough to have a partner of the passive type
         who bleats `Thy will is done' - that ends in contempt,
         boredom and distrust. One wants a passion that can blend with
         one's own. Where this is the case, it does not matter so much
         whether the mental expression is syndromic; it is, indeed,
         better when two entirely different worlds of thought and
         experience have led to sister conclusions. But it is
         essential that the habit of mind should be sympathetic, that
         the machinery should be constructed on similar principles.
         The psychology of the one should be intelligible to the
         other.  Social position and physical appearance and habits
         are of far less importance, especially in a society which has
         accepted the Law of Thelema. Tolerance itself produces
         suavity, and suavity soon relieves the strain on tolerance.
         In any case, most people, especially women, adapt themselves
         adroitly enough to their environment. I say `Especially
         women', for women are nearly always conscious of an important
         part of their true Will; the bearing of children. To them
         nothing else is serious in comparison, and they dismiss
         questions which do not bear on this as trifles, adopting the
         habits required of them in the interest of the domestic
         harmony which they recognize as a condition favourable to
         reproduction.  I have outlined ideal conditions. Rarely
         indeed can we realize even a third of our possibilities. Our
         Magical engine is mighty indeed when its efficiency reaches
         50% of its theoretical horse-power. But the enormous majority
         of mankind have no idea whatever of taking Love as a sacred
         and serious thing, of using the eye of the microscopist, or
         the heart and brain of the artist. Their ignorance and their
         shame have made Love a carcass of pestilence; and Love has
         avenged the outrage by crushing their lives when they pull
         down the temple upon them.  The chance of finding a suitable
         object of Love has been reduced well nigh to zero by
         substituting for the actual conditions, as stated in the
         above paragraphs, a totally artificial and irrelevant series;
         the restrictions on the act itself, marriage, opinion, the
         conspiracy of silence, criminal laws, financial fetters,
         selections limited by questions of race, nationality, caste,
         religion, social and political cliqueishness, even family
         exclusiveness. Out of the millions of humanity the average
         person is lucky if he can take his pick of a couple of score
         of partners.  I will here add one further pillar to my
         temple. It happens only too often that two people, absolutely
         fitted in every way to love each other, are totally debarred
         from expressing themselves by sheer ignorance of the
         technique of the act. What Nature declares as the climax of
         the Mass, the manifestation of God in the flesh, when the
         flesh is begotten, is so gross, clumsy and brutal that it
         disappoints and disgusts. They are horribly conscious that
         something is wrong. They do not know how to amend it. They
         are ashamed to discuss it. They have neither the experience
         to guide nor the imagination to experiment. Countless
         thousands of delicate-minded lovers turn against Love and
         blaspheme Him. Countless millions, not quite so fixed in
         refinement, accept the fact, acquiesce in the foulness, till
         Love is degraded to guilty grovelling. They are dragged in
         the dirt of the night-cart which ought to have been their
         `chariot of fire and the horses thereof'.  This whole trouble
         comes from humanity's horror of Love. For the last hundred
         years, every first-rate writer on morals has sent forth his
         lightnings and thunders, hailstones and coals of fire, to
         burn up Gommorrah and Sodom where Love is either shameful and
         secret, or daubed with dung of sentiment in order that the
         swinish citizens may recognize their ideal therein. We do not
         tell the artist that his art is so sacred, so disgusting, so
         splendid and so disgraceful that he must not on any account
         learn the use of the tools of his trade, and study in school
         how to see with his eye, and record what he sees with his
         hand. We do not tell the man who would heal disease that he
         must not know his subject, from anatomy to Pathology; or bid
         him undertake to remove an appendix from a valued Archbishop
         the first time he takes scalpel in hand.  But love is an art
         no less than Rembrandt's, a science no less than Lister's.
         The mind must make the heart articulate, and the body the
         temple of the soul. The animal instinct in man is the twin of
         the ape's or the bull's. Yet this is the one thing lawful in
         the code of the bourgeois. He is right to consider the act,
         as he knows it, degrading. It is, indeed for him, an act
         ridiculous, obscene, gross, beastly; a wallowing unworthy
         either of the dignity of man or of the majesty of the God
         within him. So is the guzzling and the swilling of the savage
         as he crams his enemy's raw liver into his mouth, or tilts
         the bottle of trade gin, and gulps. Because his meal is
         loathly, must we insist that any methods but his are
         criminal? How did we come to Laperouse and Nichol from the
         cannibal's cauldron unless by critical care and vigorous
         research?  The act of Love, to the bourgeois, is a physical
         relief like defaecation, and a moral relief from the strain
         of the drill of decency; a joyous relapse into the brute he
         has to pretend he despises. It is a drunkenness which drugs
         his shame of himself, yet leaves him deeper in disgust. It is
         an unclean gesture, hideous and grotesque. It is not his own
         act, but forced on him by a giant who holds him helpless; he
         is half madman, half automaton when he performs it. It is a
         gawky stumbling across a black foul bog, oozing a thousand
         dangers. It threatens him with death, disease, disaster in
         all manner of forms. He pays the coward's price of fear and
         loathing when pedlar Sex holds out his Rat-Poison in the
         lead-paper wrapping he takes for silver; he pays again with
         vomiting and with colic when he has gulped it in his greed.
         All this he knows, only too well; he is right, by his own
         lights, to loathe and fear the act, to hide it from his eyes,
         to swear he knows it not. With tawdry rags of sentiment,
         sacksful of greasy clouts, he swathes the corpse of Love,
         and, smirking, sputters that Love had never a naked limb;
         then as the brute in him stirs sleepily, he plasters Love
         with mire, and leering grunts that Love, shameless and
         fearless, seeing God in the Temple Man, but a toothsome lump
         of carrion in the corner of his own stye.  But we of Thelema,
         like the artist, the true lover of Love, shameless and
         fearless, seeing God face to face alike in our own souls
         within and in all Nature without, though we use, as the
         bourgeois does, the word Love, we hold not the word `too
         often profaned for us to profane it;' it burns inviolate in
         its sanctuary, being reborn immaculate with every breath of
         life. But by `Love' we mean a thing which the eye of the
         bourgeois hath not seen, nor his ear heard; neither hath his
         heart conceived it. We have accepted Love as the meaning of
         Change, Change being the Life of all Matter soever in the
         Universe. And we have accepted Love as the mode of Motion of
         the Will to Change. To us every act, as implying Change, is
         an act of Love. Life is a dance of delight, its rhythm an
         infinite rapture that never can weary or stale. Our personal
         pleasure in it is derived not only from our own part in it,
         but from our conscious apprehension of its total perfections.
         We study its structure, we expand ourselves as we lose
         ourselves in understanding it, and so becoming one with it.
         With the Egyptian initiate we exclaim and add the
         antistrophe: `There is no part of the Gods that is not also
         of us.'  Therefore, the Love that is Law is not less Love in
         the  petty personal sense; for Love that makes two One is the
         engine whereby even the final Two, Self and Not-Self, may
         become One, in the mystic marriage of the Bride, the Soul,
         with Him appointed from eternity to espouse her; yea, even
         the Most High, God All-in-All, the Truth.  Therefore we hold
         Love holy, our heart's religion, our mind's science. Shall He
         not have His ordered Rite, His priests and poets, His makers
         of beauty in colour and form to adorn Him, His makers of
         music to praise Him? Shall not His theologians, divining His
         nature, declare Him? Shall not even those who but sweep the
         courts of His temple, partake thereby of His person? And
         shall not our science lay hands on Him, measure Him, discover
         the depths, calculate the heights, and decipher the laws of
         His nature? Also: to us of Thelema, thus having trained our
         hearts and minds to be expert engineers of the sky-cleaver
         Love, the ship to soar to the Sun, to us the act of Love is
         the consecration of the body to Love. We burn the body on the
         altar of Love, that even the brute may serve the Will of the
         Soul. We must then study the art of Bodily Love. We must not
         balk or bungle. We must be cool and competent as surgeons;
         brain, eye and hand the perfectly trained instruments of
         Will.  We must study the subject openly and impersonally, we
         must read text-books, listen to lectures, watch
         demonstrations, earn our diplomas ere we enter practice.  We
         do not mean what the bourgeois means when we say `the act of
         love'. To us it is not the gross gesture as of a man in a
         seizure, a snorting struggle, a senseless spasm, and a sudden
         revulsion of shame, as it is to him.  We have an art of
         expression; we art trained to interpret the soul and the
         spirit in terms of the body. We do not deny the existence of
         the body, or despise it; but we refuse to regard it in any
         other light than this: it is the organ of the Self. It must
         nevertheless be ordered according to its own laws; those of
         the mental or moral Self do not apply to it. We love; that
         is, we will to unite: then the one must study the other,
         divine every butterfly thought as it flits, and offer the
         flower it most fancies. The vocabulary of Love is small, and
         its terms are hackneyed; to seek new words and phrases is to
         be affected, stilted. It chills.  But the language of the
         body is never exhausted; one may talk for an hour by means of
         an eye-lash. There art intimate, delicate things, shadows of
         the leaves of the Tree of the Soul that dance in the breeze
         of Love, so subtle that neither Keats nor Heine in words,
         neither Brahms nor Debussy in music, could give them body. It
         is the agony of every artist, the greater he the more fierce
         his despair, that he cannot compass expression. And what they
         cannot do, not once in a life of ardour, is done in all
         fulness by the body that, loving, hath learnt the lesson of
         how to love.   Addendum: More generally, any act soever may
         be used to attain any end soever by the magician who knows
         how to make the necessary links.

         53.    It is clear that this `kiss' (i.e. this Book) will
         regenerate Earth by establishing the Law of Liberty. `My
         heart and my tongue' seems a mere phrase of endearment; but
         has possibly some deep significance which at present escapes
         me.  The second paragraph is perhaps in answer to some
         unspoken thought of my own that my work was accomplished. No:
         though I be `of the princes' with the right to enter into my
         reward, it is my destiny to continue my Work.*

         54.    The subject changes most abruptly, perhaps answering
         some unspoken comment of the scribe on the capital T's in `To
         me'.  This injunction was most necessary, for had I been left
         to myself, I should have wanted to edit the Book ruthlessly.
         I find in it what I consider faults of style, and even of
         grammar; much of the matter was at the time of writing most
         antipathetic. But the Book proved itself greater than the
         scribe; again and again have the `mistakes' proved themselves
         to be devices for transmitting a Wisdom beyond the scope of
         ordinary language.

         56.    All previous systems have been sectarian, based on a
         traditional cosmography both gross and incorrect. Our system
         is based on absolute science and philosophy. We have `all in
         the clear light', that of Reason, because our Mysticism is
         based on an absolute Scepticism. But at the time of this
         writing I had very little mystic experience indeed, as my
         record shows. The Fact is that I was far, far from the Grade
         even of Master of the Temple. So I could not properly
         understand this Book; how then could I effectively promulgate
         it? I comprehended but dimly that it contained my Word; for
         the Grade of Magus then seemed to me unthinkably high above
         me. Also, let me say that the True Secrets of this Grade and
         unfathomable and awful beyond all expression; the process of
         initiation thereto was continuous over years, and contained
         the most sublime mystic experiences -- beyond any yet
         recorded by man -- as mere incidents in its terrific Pageant.
         The `equation' is the representation of Truth by Word.

         57.    `Love is the law, love under will', is an
         interpretation of the general law of Will. It is dealt with
         fully in the Book Aleph.  I here insert a few pertinent
         passages from that Book.  "This is the evident and final
         Solvent of the Knot Philosophical concerning Fate and
         Freewill, that it is thine own Self, omniscient and
         omnipotent, sublime in Eternity, that first didst order the
         Course of thine own Orbit, so that that which befalleth thee
         by Fate is indeed the necessary Effect of thine own Will.
         These two, then, that like Gladiators have made War in
         Philosophy through these many Centuries, art made One by the
         Love under Will which is the Law of Thelema.  O my Son, there
         is no Doubt that resolveth not in Certainty and Rapture at
         the Touch of the Wand of our Law, and thou apply it with Wit.
         Do thou grow constantly in the Assimilation of the Law, and
         thou shalt be made perfect.  Behold, there is a Pageant of
         Triumph as each Star, free from Confusion, sweepeth free in
         its right Orbit; all Heaven acclaimeth thee as thou goest,
         transcendental in Joy and in Splendour; and thy Light is as a
         Beacon to them that Wander afar, strayed in the Night.
         Amoun."   The `old comment' covers the rest of this verse
         sufficiently for the present purpose.  I see no harm in
         revealing the mystery of Tzaddi to `the wise'; others will
         hardly understand my explanations.  Tzaddi is the letter of
         The Emperor, the Trump IV, and He is the Star, the Trump
         XVII. Aquarius and Aries are therefore counterchanged,
         revolving on the pivot of Pisces, just as, in the Trumps VIII
         and XI, Leo and Libra do about Virgo. This last revelation
         makes our Tarot attributions sublimely, perfectly, flawlessly
         symmetrical.  The fact of its so doing is a most convincing
         proof of the superhuman Wisdom of the author of this Book to
         those who have laboured for years, in vain, to elucidate the
         problems of the Tarot.

         58.    These joys art principally (1) the Beatific Vision, in
         which Beauty is constantly present to the recipient of Her
         grace, together with a calm and unutterable joy; (2) the
         Vision of Wonder, in which the whole Mystery of the Universe
         is constantly understood and admired for its Ingenium and
         Wisdom. (1) is referred to Tiphereth, the Grade of Adept; (2)
         to Binah, the grade of Master of the Temple.  The certainty
         concerning death is conferred by the Magical Memory, and
         various Experiences without which Life is unintelligible.
         `Peace unutterable' is given by the Trance in which Matter is
         destroyed; `rest' by that which finally equilibrates Motion.
         `Ecstasy' refers to a Trance which combines these.  `Nor do I
         demand aught in sacrifice' -- The ritual of worship is
         Samadhi. But see later, verse 61.

         59.    It seems possible that Our Lady describes Her hair as
         `the trees of Eternity' because of the tree-like structure of
         the Cosmos. This is observed in the `Star-Sponge' Vision. I
         must explain this by giving a comparatively full account of
         this vision.

                         "The `Star-Sponge' Vision.  There is a vision
         of a peculiar character which has been of cardinal importance
         in my interior life, and to which constant reference is made
         in my magical diaries. So far as I know, there is no extant
         description of this vision anywhere, and I was surprised on
         looking through my records to find that I had given no clear
         account of it myself. The reason apparently is that it is so
         necessary a part of myself that I unconsciously assume it to
         be a matter of common knowledge, just as one assumes that
         everybody knows that one possesses a pair of lungs, and
         therefore abstains from mentioning the fact directly,
         although perhaps alluding to the matter often enough.  It
         appears very essential to describe this vision as well as is
         possible, considering the difficulty of language, and the
         fact that the phenomena involve logical contradictions, the
         conditions of consciousness being other than those obtaining
         normally.  The vision developed gradually. It was repeated on
         so many occasions that I am unable to say at what period it
         may be called complete. The beginning, however, is clear
         enough in my memory.  I was on a retirement in a cottage
         overlooking Lake Pasquaney in New Hampshire. I lost
         consciousness of everything but an universal space in which
         were innumerable bright points, and I realized this as a
         physical representation of the Universe, in what I may call
         its essential structure. I exclaimed: `Nothingness, with
         twinkles!' I concentrated upon this vision, with the result
         that the void space which had been the principal element of
         it diminished in importance; space appeared to be ablaze, yet
         the radiant points were not confused, and I thereupon
         completed my sentence with the exclamation `But what
         Twinkles!' The next stage of this vision led to an
         identification of the blazing points with the stars of the
         firmament, with ideas, souls, etc. I perceived also that each
         star was connected by a ray of light with each other star. In
         the world of ideas, each thought possessed a necessary
         relation with each other thought; each such relation is of
         course a thought in itself; each such ray is itself a star.
         It is here that logical difficulty first presents itself. The
         seer has a direct perception of infinite series. Logically,
         therefore, it would appear as if the entire space must be
         filled up with a homogeneous blaze of light. This however is
         not the case. The space is completely full; yet the monads
         which fill it are perfectly distinct. The ordinary reader
         might well exclaim that such statements exhibit symptoms of
         mental confusion. The subject demands more than cursory
         examination. I can do no more than refer the critic to the
         Hon. Bertrand Russell's Introduction to Mathematical
         Philosophy, where the above position is thoroughly justified,
         as also certain positions which follow. At the time I had not
         read this book; and I regard it as a  striking proof of the
         value of mystical attainment, that its results should have
         led a mind such as mine, whose mathematical training was of
         the most elementary character, to the immediate consciousness
         of some of the most profound and important mathematical
         truths; to the acquisition of the power to think in a manner
         totally foreign to the normal mind, the rare possession of
         the greatest thinkers in the world.  A further development of
         the vision brought the consciousness that the structure of
         the universe was highly organized, that certain stars were of
         greater magnitude and brilliancy than the rest. I began to
         seek similes to help me to explain myself. Several such
         attempts are mentioned later in this note. Here again are
         certain analogies with some of the properties of infinite
         series. The reader must not be shocked at the idea of a
         number which is not increased by addition or multiplication,
         a series of infinite series, each one of which may be twice
         as long as its predecessor, and so on. There is no `mystical
         humbug' about this. As Mr. Russell shows, truths of this
         order are more certain than the most universally accepted
         axioms; in fact, many axioms accepted by the intellect of the
         average man are not true at all. But in order to appreciate
         these truths, it is necessary to educate the mind to thought
         of an order which is at first sight incompatible with
         rationality.  I may here digress for a moment in order to
         demonstrate how this vision led directly to the understanding
         of the mechanism of certain phenomena which have hitherto
         been dismissed with a shrug of the shoulders as
         incomprehensible.  Example No. 1. I began to become aware of
         my own mental processes; I thought of my consciousness as the
         Commander-in- Chief of an army. There existed a staff of
         specialists to deal with various contingencies. There was an
         intelligence department to inform me of my environment. There
         was a council which determined the relative importance of the
         data presented to them -- it required only a slight effort of
         imagination to think of this council as in debate; I could
         picture to myself some tactically brilliant proposal being
         vetoed by the Quarter- Master-General. It was only one step
         to dramatize the scene, and it flashed upon me in a moment
         that here was the explanation of `double personality': that
         illusion was no more than a natural personification of
         internal conflict, just as the savage attributes
         consciousness to trees and rocks.  Example No. 2. While at
         Montauk I had put my sleeping bag to dry in the sun. When I
         went to take it in, I remarked, laughingly, `Your bedtime,
         Master Bag,' as if it were a small boy and I its nurse. This
         was entirely frivolous, but the thought flashed into my mind
         that after all the bag was in one sense a part of myself. The
         two ideas came together with a snap, and I understood the
         machinery of a man's delusion that he is a teapot.  These two
         examples may give some idea to the reader of the light which
         mystical attainment throws upon the details of the working of
         the human mind.  Further developments of this vision
         emphasized the identity between the Universe and the mind.
         The search for similes deepened. I had a curious impression
         that the thing I was looking for was somehow obvious and
         familiar. Ultimately it burst upon me with fulminating
         conviction that the simile for which I was seeking was the
         nervous system. I exclaimed: `The mind is the nervous system,
         ' with all the enthusiasm of Archimedes, and it only dawned
         on me later, with a curious burst of laughter at my naivete,
         that my great discovery amounted to a platitude.   From this
         I came to another discovery: I perceived why platitudes were
         stupid. The reason was that they represented the summing up
         of trains of thought, each of which was superb in every
         detail at one time. A platitude was like a wife after a few
         years; she has lost none of her charms, and yet one prefers
         some perfectly worthless woman.  I now found myself able to
         retrace the paths of thought which ultimately come together
         in a platitude. I would start with some few simple ideas and
         develop them. Each stage in the process was like the joy of a
         young eagle soaring from height to height in ever increasing
         sunlight as dawn breaks, foaming, over the purple hem of the
         garment of ocean, and, when the many coloured rays of rose
         and gold and green gathered themselves together and melted
         into the orbed glory of the sun, with a rapture that shook
         the soul with unimaginable ecstasy, that sphere of rushing
         light was recognized as a common-place idea, accepted
         unquestioningly and treated with drab indifference because it
         had so long been assimilated as a natural and necessary part
         of the order of Nature. At first I was shocked and disgusted
         to discover that a series of brilliant researches should
         culminate in a commonplace. But I soon understood that what I
         had done was to live over again the triumphant career of
         conquering humanity; that I had experienced in my own person
         the succession of winged victories that had been sealed by a
         treaty of peace whose clauses might be summed up in some such
         trite expression as `Beauty depends upon form'."

         It would be quite impracticable to go fully into the subject
         of this vision of the Star-Sponge, if only because its
         ramifications are omniform. It must suffice to reiterate that
         it has been the basis of most of my work for the last five
         years, and to remind the reader that the essential form of it
         is `Nothingness with twinkles'.

         62.    It is evident that Our Lady, in her Personality,
         contemplates some more or less open form of worship suited
         for the laity. With the establishment of the Law something of
         this sort may become possible. It is only necessary to kill
         out the sense of `sin', with its false shame and its fear of
         nature.  P.S. The Gnostic Mass is intended to supply this
         need. Liber XV. It has been said continuously in California
         for some years.

         63.    All those acts which excite the divine in man are
         proper to the Rite of Invocation.  Religion, as understood by
         the vile Puritan, is the very opposite of all this. He -- it
         -- seems to wish to kill his -- its -- soul by forbidding
         every expression of it, and every practice which might awaken
         it to expression. To hell with this Verbotenism!  In
         particular, let me exhort all men and all women, for they are
         Stars! Heed well this holy Verse!  True Religion is
         intoxication, in a sense. We are told elsewhere to intoxicate
         the innermost, not the outermost; but I think that the word
         `wine' should be taken in its widest sense as meaning that
         which brings out the soul. Climate, soil, and race change
         conditions; each man or woman must find and choose the fit
         intoxicant. Thus hashish in one or the other of its forms
         seems to suit the Moslem, to go with dry heat; opium is right
         for the Mongol; whiskey for the dour temperament and damp
         cold climate of the Scot.  Sex-expression, too, depends on
         climate and so on, so that we must interpret the Law to suit
         a Socrates, a Jesus, and a Burton, or a Marie Antoinette and
         a de Lamballe, as well as our own Don Juans and Faustines.
         With this expansion, to the honour and glory of Them, of
         Their Natures, we acclaim therefore our helpers, Dionysus,
         Aphrodite, Apollo, Wine, Woman, and song.  Intoxication, that
         is, ecstasy, is the key to Reality. It is explained in
         `Energized Enthusiasm' The Equinox I(9)) that there are three
         Gods whose function is to bring the Soul to the Realization
         of its own glory: Dionysus, Aphrodite, Apollo; Wine, Woman,
         and song.  The ancients, both in the highest civilizations,
         as in Greece and Egypt, and in the most primitive savagery,
         as among the Buriats and the Papuans, were well aware of
         this, and made their religious ceremonies `orgia', Works.
         Puritan foulness, failing to understand what was happening,
         degraded the word `orgies' to mean debauches. It is the old
         story of the Fox who lost his tail. If you cannot do
         anything, call it impossible; or, if that be evidently
         absurd, call it wicked!  It is critics who deny poetry,
         people without capacity for Ecstasy and Will who call
         Mysticism moonshine and Magick delusion. It is manless old
         cats, geldings, and psychopaths, who pretend to detest Love,
         and persecute Free Women and Free Men.  Verbotenism has gone
         so far in certain slave-communities that the use of wine is
         actually prohibited by law!  I wish here to emphasise that
         the Law of Thelema definitely enjoins us, as a necessary act
         of religion, to `drink sweet wines and wines that foam'. Any
         free man or woman who resides in any community where this is
         verboten has a choice between two duties: insurrection and
         emigration.  The furtive disregard of Restriction is not
         Freedom. It tends to make men slaves and hypocrites, and to
         destroy respect for Law.  Have no fear: two years after Vodka
         was verboten, Russia, which had endured a thousand lesser
         tyrannies with patience, rose in Revolution.  Religious
         ecstasy is necessary to man's soul Where this is attained by
         mystical practices, directly, as it should be, people need no
         substitutes. Thus the Hindus remain contentedly sober, and
         care nothing for the series of Invaders who have occupied
         their country from time to time and governed them. But where
         the only means of obtaining this ecstasy, or a simulacrum of
         it, known to the people, is alcohol, they must have alcohol.
         Deprive them of wine, or beer, or whatever their natural
         drink may be, and they replace it by morphia, cocaine, or
         something easier to conceal, and to take without detection.
         Stop that, and it is Revolution. As long as a man can get rid
         of his surplus Energy in enjoyment, he finds life easy, and
         submits. Deprive him of Pleasure, of Ecstasy, and his mind
         begins to worry about the way in which he is exploited and
         oppressed. Very soon he begins furtively to throw bombs; and,
         gathering strength, to send his tyrants to the gallows.

         220A2-1.ASC

         1.    We see again set forth the complementary character of Nuith and
         Hadith. Nu conceals Had because He is Everywhere in the Infinite, and
         She manifests Him for the same reason. See verse 3. Every Individual
         manifests the Whole; and the Whole conceals every Individual. The Soul
         interprets the Universe; and the Universe veils the Soul. Nature
         understands Herself by becoming self-conscious in Her units; and the
         Consciousness loses its sense of separateness by dissolution in Her.
         There has been much difficulty in the orthography (in sacred
         languages) of these names. Nu is clearly stated to be 56; but Had is
         only hinted obscurely. This matter is discussed later more fully;
         verses 15 and 16.

         2.    Khabs -- `a star' -- is an unit of Nuit, and therefore Nuit
         Herself. This doctrine is enormously difficult of apprehension, even
         after these many years of study.  Hadit is the `core of every star,'
         verse 6. He is thus the Impersonal Identity within the Individuality
         of `every man and every woman.' He is `not extended;' that is, without
         condition of any sort in the metaphysical sense. Only in the highest
         trances can the nature of these truths be realized. It is indeed a
         suprarational experience not dissimilar to those characteristic of the
         `Star- Sponge' Vision previously described that can help us here. The
         trouble is that the truth itself is unfitted to the dualistic reason
         of `normal' mankind. Hadit seems to be the principle of Motion which
         is everywhere, yet is not extended in any dimension except as it
         chances to combine with the `Matter' which is Nuit. There can
         evidently be no manifestation apart from this conjunction. A `Khabs'
         or Star is apparently any nucleus where this conjunction has taken
         place. The real philosophical difficulty about this cosmogony is not
         concerned with any particular equation, or even with the Original
         Equation. We can understand x=ab, x, = a, b, & c; and also 0  =pa
         qb, whether pa - qb = 0 or not. But we ask how the homogeneity of both
         Nuit and Hadit can ever lead to even the illusion of `difference.' The
         answer appears  to be that this difference appears naturally with the
         self-realization of Nuit as the totality of possibilities; each of
         these, singly and in combination, is satisfied or set in motion by
         Hadit, to compose a particular manifestation,  could possess no
         signification at all, unless there were diverse dimensions wherein it
         had no extension. `Nothing' means nothing save from the point of view
         of `Two,' just as `Two' is monstrous unless it is seen as a mode of
         `Nothing.' The above explanation appears somewhat disingenuous, since
         there is no means whatever of distinguishing any Union  H N = R from
         another. We must postulate a further stage.  R (Ra-Hoor-Khuit) Kether,
         Unity, is always itself; but we may suppose that a number of such
         homogeneous positive manifestations may form groups differing from
         each other as to size and structure so as to create the illusion of
         diversity.

         3.    This is again interesting as throwing light on the thesis; Every
         man and every woman is a star. There is no place soever that is not a
         Centre of Light.  This Truth is to be realised by direct perception,
         not merely by intellection. It is axiomatic; it cannot be
         demonstrated. It is to be assimilated by experience of the Vision of
         the `Star- Sponge.'

         4.    See later, verse 13, `Thou (i.e. the Beast, who is here the
         Mask, or `per-sona,' of Hadit) wast the knower.' Hadit possesses the
         power to know, Nuit that of being known. Nuit is not unconnected with
         the idea of Nibbana, the `Shoreless Sea, ' in which Knowledge is Not.
         Hadit is hidden in Nuit, and knows Her, She being an object of
         knowledge; but He is not knowable, for He is merely that part of Her
         which She formulates in order that She may be known.

         5.    The `old time' is the Aeon of the Dying God. Some of his rituals
         are founded on an utterly false metaphysic and cosmogony; but others
         are based on Truth. We mend these, and end these.  This `Knowledge' is
         the initiated Wisdom of this Aeon of Horus.   See Book 4, Part III,
         for an account of the new principles of magick.  Note that Knowledge
         is Daath, Child of Chokmah by Binah, and crown of Microprosopus; yet
         he is not one of the Sephiroth, and his place is in the Abyss. By this
         symbolism we draw attention to the fact that Knowledge is by nature
         impossible; for it implies Duality and is therefore relative. Any
         proposition of Knowledge may be written `ARB:' `A has the relation R
         to B.' Now if A and B are identical, the proposition conveys no
         knowledge at all. If A is not identical with B, ARB implies `A is
         identical with BC;' this assumes that not less than three distinct
         ideas exist. In every case, we must proceed either to the identity
         which means ultimately `Nothing,' or to divergent diversities which
         only seem to mean something so long as we refrain from pushing the
         analysis of any term to its logical elements. For example, `Sugar is
         sugar' is obviously not knowledge. But no more is this: `Sugar is a
         sweet white crystalline carbo-hydrate.' For each of these four terms
         describes a sensory impression on ourselves; and we define our
         impressions only in terms of such things as sugar. Thus `sweet' means
         `the quality ascribed by our taste to honey, sugar, etc.'; `white' is
         `what champaks, zinc oxide, sugar, etc. report to our eyesight;' and
         so on. The proposition is ultimately an identity, for all our attempts
         to evade the issue by creating complications. `Knowledge' is therefore
         not a `thing-in-itself;' it is rightly denied a place upon the Tree of
         Life; it pertains to the Abyss.  Besides the above considerations, it
         may be observed that Knowledge, so far as it exists at all, even as a
         statement of relation, is no more than a momentary phenomenon of
         consciousness. It is annihilated in the instant of its creation. For
         no sooner do we assent to ARB than ARB is absorbed in our conception
         of A. After the nine-days' wonder of `The earth revolves round the
         sun,' we modify our former idea of Earth. `Earth' is intuitively
         classed with other solar satellites. The proposition vanishes
         automatically as it is assimilated. Knowledge, while it exists as such
         is consequently sub judice, at the best. What then may we understand
         by this verse, with its capital K for `Knowledge:' What is it, and how
         shall it `go aright?' The key is in the word `go.' It cannot `be,' as
         we have seen above; it is the fundamental error of the `Black
         Brothers' in their policy of resisting all Change, to try to maintain
         it as fixed and absolute. But (as the Tree of Life indicates)
         Knowledge is the means by which the conscious mind, Microprosopus,
         reaches to Understanding and to Wisdom, its mother and father, which
         reflect respectively Nuith and Hadit from the Ain and Kether. The
         process is to use each new item of knowledge to correct and increase
         one's comprehension of the Subject of the Proposition. Thus ARB should
         tell us: A is (not A, as we supposed) but A. This facilitates the
         discovery A,R.C leading to A, is A ; and so on. In practice, every
         thing that we learn about (e.g.) `horse' helps us to understand -- to
         enjoy -- the idea. The difference between the scholar and the
         schoolboy is that the former glows and exults when he is reminded of
         some word like `Thalassa.' Ourselves:- What a pageant of passion
         empurples our minds whenever we think of the number 93! Most of all,
         each new thing that we know about ourselves helps us to realize what
         we mean by our `Star.' Now, `the rituals of the old time,' are no
         longer valid vehicles; Knowledge cannot `go aright' until they are
         adapted to the Formula of the New Aeon. Their defects are due
         principally to two radical errors. (1.) The Universe was conceived as
         possessing a fixed centre, or summit; an absolute standard to which
         all things might be referred; an Unity, or God. (Mystics were angry
         and bewildered, often enough, when attaining to `union with God' they
         found him equally in all). This led to making a difference between one
         thing and another, and so to the ideas of superiority, of sin, etc.,
         ending by absurdities of all kinds, alike in theology, ethics, and
         science. (2) The absolute antithesis between the pairs of opposites.
         This is really a corollary of (1). There was an imaginary `absolute
         evil' which made Manichaeanism necessary -- despite the cloaks of the
         Causists -- and meant `That which leads one away from God.' But each
         man, while postulating an absolute `God' and `Evil' were really
         expressions of personal prejudice. A man who `bowed humbly to the
         Authority of' the Pope, or the Bible, or the Sanhedrim, or the Oracle
         of Apollo, or the tribal Medicine-Man, none the less expressed truly
         his own Wish to abdicate responsibility. In the light of this Book, we
         know that the centre is everywhere, the circumference nowhere; that
         `Every man and every woman is a star,' a `Khabs,' the name of the
         house of Hadit; that `The word of Sin is Restriction.' To us, then,
         `evil' is a relative term; it is `that which hinders one from
         fulfilling his true Will.'(E.g., rain is `good' or `bad' for the
         farmer according to the requirements of his crops).  The Osirian
         Rituals inculcating self-sacrifice to an abstract ideal, mutilation to
         appease an ex cathedra morality, fidelity to a priori formulae, etc.
         teach false and futile methods of acquiring false Knowledge; they must
         be  `cast away' or `purged'. The Schools of Initiation must be
         reformed.

         6.    It follows that, as Hadit can never be known, there is no death.
         The death of the individual is his awakening to the impersonal
         immortality of Hadit. This applies less to physical death than to the
         Crossing of the Abyss; for which see Liber 418, Fourteenth Aethyr. One
         may attain to be aware that one is but a particular `child' of the
         Play of Hadit and Nuit; one's personality is then perceived as being a
         disguise. It is not only not a living thing, as one had thought; but a
         mere symbol without substance, incapable of life. It is the
         conventional form of a certain cluster of thoughts, themselves the
         partial and hieroglyphic symbols of an `ego.' The conscious and
         sensible `man' is to his Self just what the printed letters on this
         page are to me who have caused them to manifest in colour and form.
         They are arbitrary devices for conveying my thought; I could use
         French or Greek just as well. Nor is this thought, here conveyed, more
         than one ray of my Orb; and even that whole Orb is but the garment of
         Me. The analogy is precise; therefore when one becomes `the knower,'
         it involves the `death' of all sense of the Ego. One perceives one's
         personality precisely as I now do these printed letters; and they are
         forgotten, just as, absorbed in my thought, the trained automatism of
         my mind and body expresses that thought in writing, without attention
         on my part, still less with identification of the extremes involved in
         the process.

         7.    `It is I that go.' The Book Aleph must be consulted for a full
         demonstration of this truth. We may say briefly that Hadit is Motion,
         that is, Change or `Love.' The symbol of Godhead in Egypt was the
         Ankh, which is a sandal-strap, implying the Power to Go; and it
         suggests the Rosy Cross, the Fulfilment of Love, by its shape.  The
         Wheel end the Circle are evidently symbols of Nuith; this sentence
         insists upon the conception of Lingam-Yoni. But beyond the obvious
         relation, we observe two geometrical definitions. The axle is a
         cylinder set perpendicularly to the plane of the wheel; thus Hadit
         supplies the third dimension to Nuith. It suggests that Matter is to
         be conceived as Two-dimensional; that is, perhaps, as possessed of two
         qualities, extension and potentiality. To these Hadit brings motion
         and position. The wheel moves; manifestation now is possible. Its
         perception implies three-dimensional space, and time. But note that
         the Mover is himself not moved. The `cube in the circle' emphasizes
         this question of dimensions. The cube is rectilinear (therefore
         phallic no less than the axle); its unity suggests perfection
         projected as a `solid' for human perception; its square faces affirm
         balance, equity, and limitation; its six- sidedness sets it among the
         solar symbols. It is thus like the Sun in the Zodiac, which is no more
         than the field for His fulfilment in His going. He, by virtue of his
         successive relations with each degree of the circle, clothes Himself
         with an appearance of `Matter in Motion,' although absolute motion
         through space is a meaningless expression (Eddington, Op, cit.). None
         the less, every point in the cube -- there are 2 of them -- has an
         unique relation with every point in the circle exactly balanced
         against an equal and opposite relation. We have thus Matter that both
         is and is not, Motion that both moves and moves not, interacting in a
         variety of ways which is infinite to manifest individuals, each of
         which is unlike any other, yet is symmetrically supported by its
         counterpart. Note that even at the centre of gravity of the cube no
         two rays are identical except in mere length. They differ as to their
         point of contact with the circle, their right ascension, and their
         relation with the other points of the cube.  Why is Nuith restricted
         to two dimensions? We usually think of space as a sphere. `None ----
         and two:' extension and potentiality are Her only projections of
         Naught. It is strange, by the way to find that modern mathematics says
         `Spherical space is not very easy to imagine' (Eddington,
         Op.cit.p.158) and prefers to attribute a geometrical form whose
         resemblance to the Kteis is most striking. For Nuit is,
         philosophically speaking, the archetype of the Kteis, giving
         appropriate Form to all Being, and offering every possibility of
         fulfilment of every several point that it envelops. But Nuith cannot
         be symbolized as three-dimensional, in our system; each unit has
         position by three spatial, and one temporal, coordinates. It cannot
         exist, in our consciousness, with less, as a reality. Each
         `individual' must be a `point-interval;' he must be the product of
         some part of the Matter of Nuit (with special energies) determined in
         space by his relations with his neighbours, and in time by his
         relations with himself.  It is evidently `a foolish word' for Hadit to
         say `Come unto me,' as did Nuit naturally enough, meaning `Fulfil thy
         possibilities;' for who can `come unto' Motion itself, who draw near
         unto that which is in very truth his innermost identity?

         8.    Harpocrates is also the Dwarf-Soul, the Secret Self of every
         man, the Serpent with the Lion's Head. Now Hadit knows Nuit by virtue
         of his `Going' or `Love.' It is therefore wrong to worship Hadit; one
         is to be Hadit, and worship Her. This is clear even from His
         instruction `To worship me' in verse 22 of this chapter. Confer,
         Cap.I, v.9. We are exhorted to offer ourselves unto Nuit, pilgrims to
         all her temples. It is bad Magick to admit that one is other than
         One's inmost self. One should plunge passionately into every posseble
         experience; by doing so one is purged of those personal prejudices
         which we took so stupidly for ourselves, though they prevented us from
         realizing our true Wills and from knowing our Names and Natures. The
         Aspirant must well understand that it is no paradox to say that the
         Annihilation of the Ego in the Abyss is the condition of emancipating
         the true Self, and exalting it to unimaginable heights. So long as one
         remains `one's self,' one is overwhelmed by the Universe; destroy the
         sense of self, and every event is equally an expression of one's Will,
         since its occurrence is the resultant of the concourse of the forces
         which one recognizes as one's own.

         9.    This verse is very thoroughly explained in Liber Aleph. `All in
         this kind are but shadows' says Shakespeare, referring to actors. The
         Universe is a Puppet-Play for the amusement of Nuit and Hadit in their
         Nuptials; a very Midsummer Night's Dream. So then we laugh at the mock
         woes of Pyramus and Thisbe, the clumsy gambols of Bottom; for we
         understand the Truth of Things, how all is a Dance of Ecstasy. `Were
         the world understood, Ye would know it was good, a Dance to a lyrical
         measure!' The nature of events must be `pure joy;' for obviously,
         whatever occurs is the fulfilment of the Will of its master. Sorrow
         thus appears as the result of any unsuccessful -- therefore,
         ill-judged -- struggle. Acquiescence in the order of Nature is the
         ultimate Wisdom. One must understand the Universe perfectly, and be
         utterly indifferent to its pressure. These are the virtues which
         constitute a Master of the Temple. Yet each man must act What he will;
         for he is energized by his own nature. So long as he works `without
         lust of result' and does his duty for its own sake, he will know that
         `the sorrows are but shadows.' And he himself is `that which remains;'
         for he can no more be destroyed, or his true Will be thwarted, than
         Matter diminish or Energy disappear. He is a necessary Unit of the
         Universe, equal and opposite to the sum total of all the others; and
         his Will is similarly the final factor which completes the equilibrium
         of the dynamical equation. He cannot fail if he would; thus, his
         sorrows are but shadows - he could not see them if he kept his gaze
         fixed on his goal, the Sun.

         10.    As related in Equinox I, VII, I was at the time of this
         revelation, a rationalistic Buddhist, very convinced of the First
         Noble Truth: `Everything is Sorrow.' I supposed this point of view to
         be an absolute and final truth -- as if Apemantus were the only
         character in Shakespeare!  It is also explained in that place how I
         was prepared for this Work by that period of Dryness. If I had been in
         sympathy with it, my personality would have interfered. I should have
         tried to better my instructions.  See, in Liber 418, the series of
         visions by which I actually transcended Sorrow. But the considerations
         set forth in the comment on verse 9 lead to a simpler, purer, and more
         perfect attainment for those who can assimilate them in the
         subconscious mind by the process described in the comment on verse 6.
         It may encourage certain types of aspirant if I emphasize my personal
         position. AIWAZ made no mistake when he spoke this verse -- and the
         triumphant contempt of his tone still rings in my ear! After seventeen
         years of unparalleled spiritual progress, of unimaginably intense
         ecstasies, of beatitudes prolonged for whole months, of initiations
         indescribably exalted, of proof piled on proof of His power, His
         vigilance, His love, after being protected and energized with
         incredible aptness, I find myself still only too ready to grumble, nay
         even to doubt. It seems as if I resented the whole business. There art
         times when I feel that the amoeba, the bourgeois, and the cow
         represent the ABC of enviable creatures. There may be a melancholic
         strain in me, as one might expect in a case of renal weakness such as
         mine. In any event, it is surely a most overwhelming proof that AIWAZ
         is not myself, but my master, that He could force me to write verse 9,
         at a time when I was both intellectually and spiritually disgusted
         with, and despairing of, the Universe, as well as physically alarmed
         about my health.

         11.    This compulsion was that of true inspiration. It was the Karma
         of countless incarnations of struggle towards the light. There is a
         sharp repulsion, physical and mental, toward any initiation, like that
         towards death.  The above paragraph states only a part of the truth. I
         am not sure that it is not an attempt to explain away the verse, which
         humiliates me. I remember clearly enough the impulse to refuse to go
         on, and the fierce resentment at the refusal of my muscles to obey me.
         Reflect that I was being compelled to make an abject recantation of
         practically every article of my creed, and I had not even Cranmer's
         excuse. I was proud of my personal prowess as a poet, hunter, and
         mountaineer of admittedly dauntless virility; yet I was being treated
         like a hypnotized imbecile, only worse, for I was perfectly aware of
         what I was doing.

         12.    The use of capitals `Me' and `Thee' emphasizes that Hadit was
         wholly manifested in The Beast. It is to be remembered that The Beast
         has agreed to follow the instructions communicated to Him only in
         order to show that `nothing would happen if you broke all the rules.'
         Poor fool! The Way of Mastery is to break all the rules -- but you
         have to know them perfectly before you can do this; otherwise you are
         not in a position to transcend them.  Aiwaz here explains that his
         power over me depended upon the fact that Hadit is verily `the core of
         every star.' As is well known, there is a limit to the power of the
         hypnotist; he cannot overcome the resistance of the Unconscious of his
         patient. My own Unconscious was thus in alliance with Aiwaz; taken
         between two fires, my conscious self was paralyzed so long as the
         pressure lasted. It will be seen later -- verses 61 to 69 -- that my
         consciousness was ultimately invaded by the Secret Self, and
         surrendered unconditionally, so that, it proclaimed, loudly and
         gladly, from its citadel, the victory of its rightful Lord. The
         mystery is indeed this, that in so prosperous and joyous a city, there
         should still be groups of malcontents whose grumblings are
         occasionally audible.

         220A2-2.ASC

         13.    Hadit had to overcome the silly `knower,' who thought
         everything was Sorrow. Cf. `Who am I?' -- `Thou knowest' in
         Chapter I.  I am far from satisfied with either of the above
         interpretations of this verse. We shall see a little later,
         verses 27 - xx, a general objection to `Because' and `why.'
         Then how is it that Hadit does not disdain to use those
         terms? It must be for the sake of my mind. Then, `for why' is
         detestably vulgar; and no straining of grammar excuses or
         explains the `me.'  We have two alternatives. The verse may
         be an insult to me