BOOK 4 by FRATER PERDURABO (Aleister Crowley) and SOROR VIRAKAM (Mary d’Este Sturges) Based on the Sangreal edition of 1969 e.v., with the “Interlude” restored (absent from the Sangreal edition). Copyright (c) Ordo Templi Orientis THERE are seven keys to the great gate, Being eight in one and one in eight. First, let the body of thee be still, Bound by the cerements of will, Corpse-rigid; thus thou mayst abort The fidget-babes that tease the thought. Next, let the breath-rhythm be low, Easy, regular, and slow; So that thy being be in tune With the great sea’s Pacific swoon. Third, let thy life be pure and calm, Swayed softly as a windless palm. Fourth, let the will-to-live be bound To the one love of the profound. Fifth, let the thought, divinely free From sense, observe its entity. Watch every thought that springs; enhance Hour after hour thy vigilance! Intense and keen, turned inward, miss No atom of analysis! Sixth, on one thought securely pinned Still every whisper of the wind! So like a flame straight and unstirred Burn up thy being in one word! Next, still that ecstasy, prolong Thy meditation steep and strong, Slaying even God, should He distract Thy attention from the chosen act! Last, all these things in one o’erpowered, Time that the midnight blossom flowered! The oneness is. Yet even in this, My son, thou shall not do amiss If thou restrain the expression, shoot Thy glance to rapture’s darkling root, Discarding name, form, sight, and stress Even of this high consciousness; Pierce to the heart! I leave thee here: Thou art the Master. I revere Thy radiance that rolls afar, O Brother of the Silver Star! CROWLEY “AHA!” Book Four by Frater Perdurabo and Soror Virakam PART II MAGICK PRELIMINARY REMARKS Issued by order of the GREAT WHITE BROTHERHOOD known as the A.’.A.’. Witness our Seal, N.’.’ Praemonstrator-General. CEREMONIAL MAGICK, footnote: The old spelling MAGICK has been adopted throughout in order to distinguish the Science of the Magi from all its counterfeits. THE TRAINING FOR MEDITATION PRELIMINARY REMARKS HITHERTO we have spoken only of the mystic path; and we have kept particularly to the practical exoteric side of it. Such difficulties as we have mentioned have been purely natural obstacles. For example, the great question of the surrender of the self, which bulks so largely in most mystical treatises, has not been referred to at all. We have said only what a man must do; we have not considered at all what that doing may involve. The rebellion of the will against the terrible discipline of meditation has not been discussed; one may now devote a few words to it. There is no limit to what theologians call “wickedness.” Only by experience can the student discover the ingenuity of the mind in trying to escape from control. He is perfectly safe so long as he sticks to meditation, doing no more and no less than that which we have prescribed; but the mind will probably not let him remain in that simplicity. This fact is the root of all the legends about the “Saint” being tempted by the ‘“Devil.” Consider the parable of Christ in the Wilderness, where he is tempted to use his magical power, to do anything but the thing that should be done. These attacks on the will are as bad as the thoughts which intrude upon Dharana. It would almost seem as if one could not succesfully practice meditation until the will had become so strong that no force in the Universe could either bend or break it. Before concentrating the lower principle, the mind, one must concentrate the higher principle, the Will. Failure to understand this has destroyed the value of all attempts to teach “Yoga,” “Menticulture,” “New Thought,” and the like. There are methods of training the will, by which it is easy to check one’s progress. Every one knows the force of habit. Every one knows that if you keep on acting in a particular way, that action becomes easier, and at last absolutely natural. All religions have devised practices for this purpose. If you keep on praying with your lips long enough, you will one day find yourself praying in your heart. The whole question has been threshed out and organized by wise men of old; they have made a Science of Life complete and perfect; and they have given to it the name of MAGICK. It is the chief secret of the Ancients, and if the keys have never been actually lost, they have certainly been little used. footnote: The holders of those keys have always kept very quiet about it. This has been especially necessary in Europe, because of the dominance of persecuting churches. Again, the confusion of thought caused by the ignorance of the people who did not understand it has discredited the whole subject. It is now our task to re-establish this science in its perfection. To do this we must criticize the Authorities; some of them have made it too complex, others have completely failed in such simple matters as coherence. Many of the writers are empirics, still more mere scribes, while by far the largest class of all is composed of stupid charlatans. We shall consider a simple form of magick, harmonized from many systems old and new, describing the various weapons of the Magician and the furniture of his temple. We shall explain to what each really corresponds, and discuss the construction and the use of everything. The Magician works in a Temple; the Universe, which is (be it remembered!) conterminous with himself. footnote: By “yourself” you mean the contents of your consciousness. All without does not exist for you. In this temple a Circle is drawn upon the floor for the limitation of his working. This circle is protected by divine names, the influences on which he relies to keep out hostile thoughts. Within the circle stands an Altar, the solid basis on which he works, the foundation of all. Upon the Altar are his Wand, Cup, Sword, and Pantacle, to represent his Will, his Understanding, his Reason, and the lower parts of his being, respectively. On the Altar, too, is a phial of Oil, surrounded by a Scourge, a Dagger, and a Chain, while above the Altar hangs a Lamp. The Magician wears a Crown, a single Robe, and a Lamen, and he bears a Book of Conjurations and a Bell. The oil consecrates everything that is touched with it; it is his aspiration; all acts performed in accordance with that are holy. The scourge tortures him; the dagger wounds him; the chain binds him. It is by virtue of these three that his aspiration remains pure, and is able to consecrate all other things. He wears a crown to affirm his lordship, his divinity; a robe to symbolize silence, and a lamen to declare his work. The book of spells or conjurations is his magical record, his Karma. In the East is the Magick Fire, in which all burns up at last. footnote: He needs nothing else but the apparatus here described for invocation, by which he calls down that which is above him and within him; but for evocations, by which he calls forth that which is below him and without him, he may place a triangle without the circle. We will now consider each of these matters in detail. CHAPTER I THE TEMPLE THE Temple represents the external Universe. The Magician must take it as he finds it, so that it is of no particular shape; yet we find written, Liber VII, vi, 2: “We made us a Temple of stones in the shape of the Universe, even as thou didst wear openly and I concealed.” This shape is the Vesica Piscis; but it is only the greatest of the Magicians who can thus fashion the Temple. There may, however, be some choice of rooms; this refers to the power of the Magician to reincarnate in a suitable body. CHAPTER II THE CIRCLE THE Circle announces the Nature of the Great Work. Though the Magician has been limited in his choice of room, he is more or less able to choose what part of the room he will work in. He will consider convenience and possibility. His circle should not be too small and cramp his movements; it should not be so large that he has long distances to traverse. Once the circle is made and consecrated, the Magician must not leave it, or even lean outside, lest he be destroyed by the hostile forces that are without. He chooses a circle rather than any other lineal figure for many reasons; e.g., 1. He affirms thereby his identity with the infinite. 2. He affirms the equal balance of his working; since all points on the circumference are equidistant from the centre. 3. He affirms the limitation implied by his devotion to the Great Work. He no longer wanders about aimlessly in the world. The centre of this circle is the centre of the Tau of ten squares which is in the midst, as shown in the illustration. The Tau and the circle together make one form of the Rosy Cross, the uniting of subject and object which is the Great Work, and which is symbolized sometimes as this cross and circle, sometimes as the Lingam-Yoni, sometimes as the Ankh or Crux Ansata, sometimes by the Spire and Nave of a church or temple, and sometimes as a marriage feast, mystic marriage, spiritual marriage, “chymical nuptials,” and in a hundred other ways. Whatever the form chosen, it is the symbol of the Great Work. This place of his working therefore declares the nature and object of the Work. Those persons who have supposed that the use of these symbols implied worship of the generative organs, merely attributed to the sages of every time and country minds of a calibre equal to their own. The Tau is composed of ten squares for the ten Sephiroth. footnote: The Ten Sephiroth are the Ten Units. In one system of classification (see “777”) these are so arranged, and various ideas are so attributed to them, that they have been made to mean anything. The more you know, the more these numbers mean to you. About this Tau is escribed a triangle, which is inscribed in the great Circle; but of the triangle nothing is actually marked but the three corners, the areas defined by the cutting of the lines bounding this triangle. This triangle is only visible in the parts which are common to two of the sides; they have therefore the shape of the diamond, one form of the Yoni. The significance of this is too complex for our simple treatise; it may be studied in Crowley’s “Berashith.” The size of the whole figure is determined by the size of one square of the Tau. And the size of this square is that of the base of the Altar, which is placed upon Maukuth. It will follow then that, in spite of the apparent freedom of the Magician to do anything he likes, he is really determined absolutely; for as the Altar must have a base proportionate to its height, and as that height must be convenient for the Magician, the size of the whole will depend upon his own stature. It is easy to draw a moral lesson from these considerations. We will