Force and Virtue of the Spirit:

 

Force and Virtue of Spirit:

DE LUCE STELLARUM.

 "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."

“It was that most Holy Prophet, thine Uncle, called upon Earth William O'Neill, or Blake, who wrote for our Understanding these Eleven Sacred Words! ---

If the Sun and Moon should doubt

They'd immediately go out.

O my Son, our Work is to shine by Force and Virtue of our own Natures without Consciousness or consideration. Now, notwithstanding that our Radiance is constant and undimmed, it may be that Clouds gathering about us conceal our Glory from the Vision of other Stars. These Clouds are our Thoughts; not those true Thoughts which are but conscious Expressions of our Will, such as manifest in our Poesy, or our Music, or other Flower-Rays of our Life quintessential. Nay, the Cloud-Thought is born of Division and of Doubt; for all Thoughts, except they be creative emanations, are Witnesses to Conflict within us. Our settled Relations with the Universe do not disturb our Minds, as, by Example, our automatic Functions, which speak to us only in the Sign of Distress. Thus all consideration is Demonstration of Doubt, and Doubt of Duality, which is the Root of Choronzon.”

 

Aleister Crowley: Liber Aleph

 

It is one’s apparent soul that presents truth to the world, thus must we seek constantly to illuminate the Word in the light thereof, one’s unique purview of L.V.X. serving as a divine lighthouse for the direction of the Spirit within. In other words, the Logos is active and is moved by the impulse to create. If this wasn't the case, one would not be practicing magick, and instead, may be lost in the jungle that surrounds the temple of one’s innermost passion, a cat of slime, lost in the ignorance of its own purpose. The paradox in overcoming this is staggeringly obvious, and it is to remain steadfast and to heed the call of one's True Will at all times, let not doubt or conflicts dissuade thee from following this inner calling as these are of Choronzon, and the injunction is to overcome by Force of Will and Virtue. Bringing us to the idea of impeccability in the face of the insurmountable, both inside and outside of the temple, the magician must present a beingness that is beyond reproach, until such time that this becomes habit and the threat ceases to oppose him.

The impulse to do one’s Will is constant, as the flame of Spirit is inextinguishable and has been invoked, which may in certain instances result in an inner conflict set to tear at the very fabric of a magician's soul. Therefore, this is a serious affair and will have to be dealt with as such, that the threat of Choronzon is to devour the soul of the magician and leave him among the Lonely Towers, even in the lower grades the commination is real and must be confronted if one is to proceed. The way of dealing with this is the Will, to strengthen and bring it to bear upon every operation is of the utmost importance. This then may lead to conflict, as one is seemingly at odds with oneself as being confronted by dispersion, that frustration resulting from a stricture of the creative impulse by this influence serves only to amplify the ordeal, therefore the work is to look at the impressions.

 The Zelator is faced with the Vision of Choronzon, his weapon being the Knife is thus related to the creative and intellective faculties, however, he is not truly ready for the exploration and expression of these, although he is overcome by his passion and finds for perhaps the first time that he is unhampered to do his Will, and seemingly, perhaps, this is a lie. At other times, he may feel unworthy, useless, as if he has no direction, that he has been fooling himself all this time and has become the victim of his own hubris. Either of these points of view may be entirely at odds with his True Will and so, he is charged as a task of his grade, to cut out those impressions that don’t serve him, and only keep those that are congruent with his Will. This determines the nature of his battle with Choronzon, who will present itself in everything, especially, as the Vampire in previous grades, Choronzon will be projected not only onto others, but also circumstances that will again set him at odds with himself. He must be critical therefore, as that is his only weapon, along with his Will, his Will may sustain him and in order for him to overcome the ordeal, he will have to evaluate reality through a critical lens.

Unless he is doing, every thought is a conversation with Choronzon, that only in doing, by the creative expression of his Will is he in harmony with the True Will, and this imbalance will need to be confronted if he is to succeed. Thus, he is to bring his Will to bear upon every faculty of his being, and his task of exploring the powers of his being indicates this charge. It is impossible though, to only do that which feels good, and satisfying only the above impulse to create among clouds of dispersion, and so this impulse will have to be realized in every aspect of life, it will have to be transformed into a universal truth, and this is achieved by cutting away the impressions, so that he may become master of his automatic consciousness, and that new impressions are formed to fortify his Will. Hence, he is to practice asana and pranayama, and by doing so, he becomes a spectator of his own thoughts, discarding that which doesn’t serve him, and keeping only that which will imbue him with momentum upon his journey into the unexplored recesses of the dark pillar.

"Love is the law, love under will."

 

Non-Being:

 

Non-Being:

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

DE STELLA MACROCOSMI.

“Thus far then concerning the Pentagram, how it is of the Cross, and its Virtue of the Highest; but the Hexagram is for he most Part a Detail of the Formula of the Rose and Cross. Already have I shewed unto thee how the Most Holy Trinity is the Yang; but the Spirit, and the Water and the Blood, that bear Witness in the Inferior, are of the Yin. Thus the Operation of the Hexagram lieth wholly within the Order of our Plane, uniting indeed any soul with its Image, but not transcendentally, for its Effect is Cosmos, the Vau that springeth from the Union of the Yod and the He. Thus is it but a Glyph of that first Formula, not of the others. But of all these Things shalt thou thyself make Study with ardent Affection; for therein lie many Mysteries of practical Wisdom in our Magick Art. And this is the Wonder and Beauty of this Work, that for every Man is his own Palace. Yea, this is Life, that the Secrets of our Order are not fixed and dead, as are the Formulae of the Outer. Know that in the many thousand Times that I have performed the Ritual of the Pentagram or the Invocation of the Heart girt with a Serpent, or the Mass of he Phoenix, or of the Holy Ghost, there has not been one Time wherein I did not win new Light, or Knowledge or Power or Virtue, save through mine own Weakness or Error.”

Liber Aleph: Aleister Crowley

The object of magick is first to formulate the Pentagram expressed in the figure of the Christ and after to unite with the Hexagram, which Crowley interestingly enough, points out, does not comprise the whole. The point he makes, that the nature of the six rayed star is cosmic and thus not transcendental is rather interesting, and leads me to question what he actually means by this. Hence the Cross is man and the Rose is symbolic of the Hexagram, and their union symbolizes what in Thelema is called Knowledge and Conversation with one’s Holy Guardian Angel, or is sometimes called Genius or Gnosis. What this entails is that the magician has harmonized and united every element of his being, psychic, emotional and physical thus perfecting himself under will and by doing so has become a reflection of the macrocosm which now sympathetic to him, is united with by the momentum of his True Will. He goes on to say that the Holy Trinity, as he calls it, is outside of the world of contraries and relates it to Yang, which is the masculine aspect of the Dao, and in so doing he ascribes the entire Supernal Triad to Yang and the world below to Yin. Any Thelemic qabalist worth his weight knows, that Binah is related to Sakti and Chokmah to Siva, or in a more Western parlance Babalon and the Beast respectively, which means that we must look at how the Supernal Triad corresponds to the worlds below it, in order to see what exactly makes it the Yang of the above-mentioned equation.

It’s clear then that what Crowley is doing is comparing Yin and Yang, not as it is usually compared, but instead is showing the nature of L.V.X. below the Abyss, and comparing the ancient Chinese idea to the qabalistic worlds instead. Following this idea, it suggests that L.V.X. as emanating from Binah into the Creative world is what is referred to as Yin and the reason Crowley states that the Hexagram is not transcendental, and it can’t be as it forms the world of contraries, which insists to us that L.V.X. subsists outside of the world of opposites. We already know that L.V.X. governs abstract reality and it is within the light that everything is united and the reason that the macrocosm is in fact, not transcendent, that non-being is necessary to be realized in order to raise man to union. The opposites are real, monism is a lie, it is not as if the mind of the magician is somehow dissolving the physical properties of the universe and himself in order to unite with every element therein, no, that’s impossible, but what he is doing is harmonizing with the above-mentioned substratum of reality, which could be called pure-consciousness and from where everything exists in union and from which his sense of separateness is dissolved. Hence the light, in fact, does not merely trickle down, but instead is forced into the Creative and Formative Worlds where it, in its finality, manifests in the Material World as the Daughter, who is the first Yin principle of the light that man encounters and must be wedded with in order to rebirth creation. The forceful manifestation is symbolized in the original Unity and may be seen as Kundalini's rise towards Samadhi, as a positive climb towards its realization and the expression of the Yang principle, which is a requisite for the attainment of K&C. After union the light must again settle back into the lower for the attainment to be rendered functional, thus it is mimicking the same process as symbolized by the light bringer's fall from heaven, and illustrates that the magician becomes the reflection of heaven upon earth. Man—the Pentagram, must in order to attain Knowledge and Conversation become a reflection of the Father and the embodiment of the Yang principle in order to impregnate the Daughter, alluding to the formula of Yod-He-Shin-Vau-He. Crowley goes on to tell us that the work in the Outer is fixed, that doing forms part of the attainment and thus gives us the creative character of the grades in Briah, and he says that the secrets of our Order are not dead and fixed, and points out the secret nature of the work and in this context "secret" must be interpreted as relating to the Adeptus grades and progressing our tradition by new Gnosis. Obviously, the Outer Order grades are there to prepare one for the influx of Light in the higher grades, an experience that will culminate with divine intercourse, and are not meant to be a springboard for self-aggrandizement.

“Love is the law, love under will.”

The Divine Within:

 

The Divine Within:

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

DE DESCIPULIS REGENDIS:

“I will have thee to know, moreover, my dear Son, the right Art of Conduct with them whom I shall give thee for Initiation. And the Rule thereof is one Rule; Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. See thou constantly to it that this be not broken; especially in the Section thereof (if I dare say so) which readeth Mind thine own Business. This is of Application equally to all, and the most dangerous Man (or Woman, as has occurred, or I err) is the Busy-body. Oh how ashamed are we, and moved to Indignation, seeing the Sins and Follies of our Neighbours! Of all the Occasions of this Grievance the most common is the Desire of Sex unsatisfied; and thou knowest already, even in thy young Experience, how in that Delirium the Weal of the Whole Universe appeareth of no Account. Do thou wean thy Babes from that Simplicity, and instil the Sense of true Proportion. For verily this is a Way of Madness, Love, unless it be under Will. And the Cure of this Madness is not so good as its Prevention, so that thou shouldst be beforehand with these Children, shewing them the right Importance of Love, how it should be a sacred Rite, exalted above Personality, and a Fire to enlighten and serve Man, not to devour him.”

Aleister Crowley: Liber Aleph

Aleister Crowley was once asked during court proceedings about his homosexuality, and the answer he gave was rather comical, although I can’t remember the quote and won’t attempt paraphrasing, but it had something to do with the fact that both men and women were seen with him at his apartment and that these encounters were all suspected to be of a romantic nature by witnesses. Indeed, these encounters were exactly that, and even during a time when homosexuality was against the law, Crowley was open about his proclivities--never attempting to hide who he was. This caused him to get kicked out of the Golden Dawn, after which a few of his associates left the Order to help him establish the A.’.A.’.. There is no wonder that he was as aware of the impact that the idle gossip of busy bodies could have for a man such as he was and what he is referring to in the above vignette. Although he certainly had a romantic streak, he also had a penchant for prostitutes, another one of his vices that would have left him better off, if it had stayed hidden. The “Sins and Follies” as he refers to them, are the sins of restriction that all adherents of the Judeo-Christian world view are casted with, that lead to the shame and indignation of needing to justify being human.

Thelema advocates free love, as is clear in the following quote from Liber AL vel Legis, “Also, take your fill and will of love as ye will, when, where and with whom ye will! But always unto me.” Hence at the start of the vignette Crowley insists that “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” must be the rule by which all conduct is governed and he moves on from there to the nature of love and the proper attitude one must adopt towards such union. Love between two people is magickal, it opens parts of being such as drugs might do, from where a very special field of creativity is exposed, that within the synthesis of love we are in a sense baptized under the ecstatic dew of direct religious experience. The world transforms into love, and under these illuminating droplets we are established as Kings and Queens, if only for a brief moment during the course of our rapture. For Thelemites, this is a sacrament, that union between two people is viewed as the highest spiritual expression, an expression wherein the impossible seems commonplace, and a field of experience wherein true magick power is obtained. Accordingly, it is a sin to restrict this impulse towards the object of one’s devotion, if we were to suppress our innate yearning for the object of our desire, and restrict our love, then lust will certainly become the master and take precedence over the natural, and divinely sanctioned union between two children of light liberated in love.

Thus, every act of love must be dedicated unto the Goddess, that one remains mindful of the sacred nature thereof and the powerful potential it holds for transformation. This is a true gift that Thelema has given us, and one that we must cherish, as it is not merely an act of faith, but a testament of our liberation. Thelema has taken the most beautiful act that any man and woman can partake in—wrested it from the hands of tyrants and has put it back where it belongs, as a sacrament and a glorification of the divine within each of us. For us it is a celebration of Light, Life, Love and Liberty, a celebration of the freedom that we have inherited as gods of the earth, and our deification as such at the centre of the universe.

"This shall regenerate the world, the little world my sister, my heart & my tongue, unto whom I send this kiss. Also, o scribe and prophet, though thou be of the princes, it shall not assuage thee nor absolve thee. But ecstasy be thine and joy of earth: ever To me! To me!"

Liber AL vel Legis: Chapter I, Verse 53

“Love is the law, love under will.”

Life as a Sacrament:

 

Life as a Sacrament:

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

De Sacramento Vero:

"But in the Sacrament of the Gnosis, which is of the Spirit, is there naught hurtful, for its Elements are not only Food, but a true Incarnation and Quintessence of Life, Love, and Liberty, and at its Manifestation thy Lion is consecrated by pure Light of Ekstacy. Also, as this is the strongest so also it is the most sensitive of all Things soever, and both proper and ready to take Impress of Will, not as a Seal passively but with true Recreation in a Microcosm thereof. And this is a God alive and puissant to create, and He is a Word of Magick wherein thou mayst read Thyself with all thine History and all thy Possibility. Also as to thine Eagle, is not this chosen by Nature Herself by Her Way of Attraction, without which harmony Aesthetic and Magnetic thy Lion is silent, and inert, even as Achilles before his Rage in his Tent. Now also therefore I charge thee, o my Son, to partake constantly of this Sacrament for it is proper to all Virtue, and as thou dost learn to us it in Perfection, thou wilt surpass all other Modes of Magick. Yea, in good Sooth, no Herb or Potion is like unto this, supreme in every Case, for it is the True Stone of Philosophers, and the Elixir and Medicine of all Things, the Universal Tincture or Menstruum of thine own Will."

Aleister Crowley: Liber Aleph

Sometimes referred to as Gnosis or Genius, in Thelema it is called Knowledge and Conversation that means Grace, wherefrom there is no-more need to plot a course as the Map is hence illuminated in the light of one’s Holy Guardian Angel. Crowley is indicating a union wherein every emotional, sensual and intellectual faculty is enlivened and congealed in the ecstasy that results from a communion with Spirit, wherein the quintessence of one’s being is brought to the surface and seared in the light of its own Truth, as the elements congeal and establishes Hadit as the conductor of God’s Will. A true incarnation -- a beingness as the complete removal of hindering devices that prior to the experience were placed over the Will of God as a veil, as the magician now understands the nature of God and that he himself is that nature – a Logos and the incarnation of the God-Man --- or the Christ.

Crowley specifically notes that this incarnation leads to activity, as the microcosm receives the Word, he is directed to become the Word and that the manifestation of the Word must be dynamic as it is the reflection of life. His passion becomes the immovable driving force behind every action. How could it be otherwise, as he has seen past the Veil of Death and has experienced eternity; the Divine Kingdom is now his affirmation as pertaining to the Highest Good, and validates his course as travelled in a corrupted world filled with the ignorance thereof. No mere metaphysical speculation, the Adept is moved by certainty and the experience has Knighted him with a sense of purpose as he fearlessly persists towards his aim unto the end.

Thus, in the pure Light of Being his entire History is unfolded to elucidate the potential of his particular incarnation, set as a charge to the fulfilment of his True Will. He was moved to this by providence as his birthright, that the Great Mother was calling to him his entire life and that, in her company he may be certain that there was nowhere else he could ever be, that this was predicted by the Fates themselves, and to accept every hardship as a requisite relating directly to the nature of his Soul and the love he shares with Eternity. This is the union of the Lion and the Eagle, it is the formula of "Love under Will", before which he was ill equipped to become master of even the simplest expression, and is now charged to go forth as a God, and to do his Will upon the world. Once aware of the nature of his attainment, he must remain reverent thereunto, and establish anew in his heart this communion as a sacrament, at the daily partaking thereof.

“Love is the law, love under will.”

Against the People:

 

Against the People:

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

DE QUIUSDAM MORBIS DISCIPULORUM:

"And thus, if any Babe of thine be ill at ease, look closely first whether this Love be not the Root of his Distemper. Watch also Idleness, for whoso presseth eagerly forward in Will heedeth little the Affairs of this Fellows. O my Son, if every Man doth his own Will, there is no more to Say! But the Busy-body nor mindeth his own Business, nor leaveth others to mind theirs. Be thou instant therefore with such an one, to cure him by enlightening his Will, and speeding him therein. Remember also that if one speak ill of another, the Fault is first of all in himself, for we know naught but that which is within us. Did not the great Witch-Finder end by confessing that he also was a Sorcerer? We become that which obsesseth us, either through extreme Hate or Extreme Love. Knowest thou not how the one is a Symbol of the other? For this Reason, since Love is the Formula of Life, we are under Bond to assimilate (in the End) that which we fear or hate. So then we shall be wise to mould all Things within ourselves in Quietness and Modulation. But above all must we use all to our own End, adapting with Adroitness even our Weakness to the Work."

Aleister Crowley, Liber Aleph:

In this vignette Crowley is instructing Achad on how to deal with his students, first giving a couple of common things that may be assisted and after he mentions busy bodies and how one would go about effectively dealing with this scum. Busy bodies huh?.... thankfully I'm not one of those. Yes, I have had my fair share of run ins with the herd, the hive, the dogs, but I am caught up in my own life and affairs, so much so, that they do not and can not really come between me and that which is attainable of lasting value for myself. Yes, to me a busy body is a pathetic creature, who in its dullness has via its occupation with me and mine managed to make me feel special. The envy of the busy body is what gets us every time, it's this comparison that makes them such a problem for the mage. You'll find that a lot of busy bodies feel that things like equity is important and that hierarchy is an illusion, only a man made idea established to keep certain people at the top of our societal food chain and in charge. They are crusaders for justice, but what is justice to a busy body anyway? They seem to think that they have gotten the short end of the stick, indeed, they have, but I assure you, this is not the fault of society, they have been done in by Nature herself. Thus, you'll find that hubris is an enemy of particular concern for the mage when confronted by the lowliest most ineffectual elements of our society, that group together and congeal creating the most corrosive slime. There is a trend amongst parents that one should never point out a child's shortcomings, or weaknesses, and now as a consequence, everyone is a gold medalist, and from all of this anyone can be president if they work hard enough, and as a result people have become incapable of perceiving their own incompetence, as they have been conditioned to believe it can be rectified, if only they work hard enough, or had enough money to pay to be better. Talents according to this lowly caste are viewed as having been unjustly attained, as if Michael Jordan had to pay to be 7 feet tall and built like Carl Lewis with the reflexes of Bruce Lee having the ball sense of nonother, than Anthony Gatto. (It's not fair, why can't I be special too?) They, in their hearts feel, that if they were born to the right family, they would have been able to buy the same prowess as M.J., they loath themselves and this makes them very bitter, and very mean.

As funny and pathetic as they are, they are also extremely dangerous, especially nowadays. Today they have access to the world wide web, and their inadequacies lead them to trolling, and the reason you never see actualized trolls is because actualized people are accomplished, and subjectively they have no doubts about their own value as human beings. The busy body's insecurities and the fact that these are objective truths founded on its own incompetence, causes it to lash out at those of a higher stature and share its pain with tripe as equally useless as itself. Here is the problem; most people are too incompetent to find the Truth, and so they give up their search, retreating back into their religious safe-houses to foster little Christians who will be exactly the same as them one day. Since there are so many animals camouflaged in human adornments, freethinkers and giants are at risk, I might even say that we are at war, and this is not a war that we can easily win, as while they brood and strategize we have things to do, and combat takes a lot of time and effort in order to be successful. Hence the only safeguard against the onslaught of these sub-humans is the same as it ever was ---- the safeguard is Love ---- and Silence.

“Love is he law, love under will.”

On Discarnate Beings:

 

On Discarnate Beings:

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

DE FORMULA TOTA:

“Here then is the Schedule for all the Operations of Magick. First, thou shalt discover thy true Will, as I have already taught thee, and that Bud thereof which is the Purpose of this Operation.

Next, formulate this Bud-Will as a Person, seeking or constructing it, and naming it according to thine Holy Qabalah, and its infallible Rule of Truth. Third, purify and consecrate this Person, concentrating upon him and against all else. This Preparation shall continue in all thy daily Life. Mark well, make ready a new Child immediately after every Birth. Fourth, make an especial and direct Invocation at thy Mass, before the Introit, formulating a visible Image of this Child, and offering the Right of Incarnation. Fifth, perform the Mass, not omitting the Epiklesis, and let there be a Golden Wedding Ring at the Marriage of thy Lion with thine Eagle. Sixth, at the Consumption of the Eucharist accept this Child, losing thy Consciousness in him, until he be well assimilated with thee. Now then do this continuously, for by Repetition cometh forth both Strength and Skill, and the Effect is cumulative, if thou allow no Time to dissipate itself.”

Aleister Crowley: Liber ALEPH

The practice of magick and the path of initiation is a path of becoming, which is marked by three steps or initiations in every magickal career. The first is birth and symbolized by the Neophyte grade, the last is called Crossing the Abyss and the grade is called the Babe of the Abyss, that if successful the Adept attains the grade of Master of the Temple. We know from Charles Stansfield Jones’ career that he experienced at least the above two, but the quote is referring to Knowledge and Conversation being the central attainment in the practice of Thelemic magick, and perhaps the most relevant to what Thelema sets out to accomplish. From reading the vignette it seems that Crowley is telling Achad about a method for maintaining Knowledge and Conversation, an attainment pertaining to the A.’.A.’. that is marked by two distinct parts of the same grade and these are the Adept Without and the Adept Within and symbolizes the initiation of entering into the College of the Rosy Cross. It is at the entrance of the grade called the Veil of Paroketh that the aspirant stands as Asar-un-nefer, which means that he has completed perfecting himself by completing the Outer Order grades and is called the Formula of Pentagrammaton and symbolized by the Christ as indicated in the name Yod-Heh-Shin-Vau-Heh, he is thus a perfect reflection of the Demiurge--the God-Man and a name which qabalistically corresponds to the ineffable name, Yod-Heh-Vau-Heh. The number of the grade is 65 and represents union between the five and the six pointed stars, and via the Abramelin ritual the aspirant is attempting to raise his consciousness thus piercing the Veil of Paroketh for the union between the Microcosm and the Macrocosm to occur, which in Hindu thought is the equivalent of Atman losing self-awareness and realizing itself as Brahman. This exposes the nature of Being to self, or in other words, he realizes himself as the all within the all, or plainly, he is a god.

The True Will is the awareness of a substratum of consciousness which corresponds to the Logos in Nature and it is by harmonizing the magician’s will, which Crowley calls the Bud-Will with the Logos that the Great Work is accomplished. The Adeptus Without attains knowledge of his True Will, although it is only after harmony has been attained that he becomes an Adeptus Within, ergo the distinction is made between the two in the above quote. The quote corresponds to maintaining Knowledge and Conversation, and not the attainment as such, but indicates the work performed by an Adeptus Within, as having already harmonized his ego at the centre of the Ruach and is in the process of reflecting his Genius into the Astral Triad. In other words, the quote is referring to maintaining balance and power in the continual development of the will during the Adept’s becoming, signifying an evolutionary process that is the performance of the Great Work, or injunctions given to the Adept directly by his Angel. The injunctions are referring to the Bud-Will that serves the Adept as guidance, and Crowley is saying that these must be observed, presumably for the remainder of the magician’s career, that is to say, for the rest of his life, if he is to drain every drop of his Blood into the Cup of Babalon and attain immortality by accomplishing the Great Work. For example; if the Adept is a sculptor who usually works in a clay medium, but one day decides to create a sculpture using a hammer and chisel, it means that he was guided towards this impulse by his True Will and is what is meant by his Angel’s injunction, thus the magician’s passion changes in light of his Angel’s influence. As people we change every day, these changes are usually so minute that they are consciously imperceptible, but on an unconscious level the transformation is immediate, so that the more aware one is of the nature of his or her True Will, the more clearly these changes are perceived, and once such an awareness is generated it becomes the responsibility of a magician to harness and cultivate such impetus in accordance with his will and is what the invocation is meant to accomplish.

The impulse which is symbolized in the above by the sculptor picking up a hammer and chisel is what I will be referring to in the following as the small will, what Crowley means by the Bud-Will as being distinct from the big will or the True Will, the latter emphasizing the nature of the Great Work. Crowley describes working with the small will in two distinct ways, first he says that it must be made into a “Person” and secondly, he describes it as a “Child” and the magician is supposed to produce a new “Child” immediately after giving birth to the preceding one. Henceforth, Crowley says to qabalistically formulate a word to represent the elements of a hammer and a chisel used in the art of sculpting as pertaining to the above example, which I assume is separate from the name of the “Person” that accordingly may be given to the magician at the invocation ceremony by the "Person" himself, thus the formula reflects the elements of the aspect of art that it supposes. The image of the person I suspect, must create itself organically as knowledge of his character increases imbuing the object of admiration into a figure of recognizably distinguished characteristics. Of course, since all of this is dealing with the unconscious, obtaining knowledge of the subject will serve as a type of skrying practice enlivening the creative faculty, and the invocation accordingly must be performed in the Body of Light, such as the invocation of one's Holy Guardian Angel. The “Person” will serve as the object of the magicians admiration and devotion, that to which he must dedicate himself, thereby flooding his consciousness with the nature of his small will, this process is not dissimilar to invoking a god and the magician will have to by saturating his life with the elements of the small will, harmonize with it completely, and this is what is meant by turning the “Bud-Will” into a “Person”, who will become an ‘image of an image’ with which the magician will unite during the course of the ritual until he has completely assimilated all the elements thereof. It is called the small will as distinct for the reason that it merely serves to form part as a compliment of the Adept’s work, whether he is sculpting with clay or using a hammer and a chisel is immaterial, as in the end, his Great Work--the Summum Bonum will be understood as the work of a Great Sculptor, and immortalized as that which pertained to his True Will in its entirety.

It will be seen then, that the quote is dealing with preternatural contact and clearly distinguishes the Hero from the Daemon, the Hero thus being the “Person” or the embodiment of the small will and the object of invocation for the Adept Within. This preternatural being, it may be noted, pertains to tradition in a concentrated way and is uniquely congruent with the will of the Adept, for whom in order to become an Adept Without he had to devote himself entirely to the corresponding tradition and as an Adept Within he has become a proponent thereof making preternatural contact a necessary part of the work of his grade. Hence, he is to unite through constant observation the Lion and the White Eagle that are associated with Chokmah and Binah and the logic behind Crowley’s use of the procreative terminology in the above vignette, the union which is symbolically represented by the Golden Wedding Ring at the Mass, and is the formula of “Love under Will”. The Lion symbolizes the ‘essential masculine’ and the Will as represented by the Logos--the Father in the sphere of Chokmah on the Tree of Life, and in the Holy Tarot this sphere corresponds to Wands, Fire and passion, whereas the opposing sphere is associated with the Mother, and this ‘essential feminine’ nature indicates all the characteristics that are associated with this archetype symbolized by Cups and Water, however in context of the quote, she is particularly attributed to Love and devotion. These two sephiroth are united within the path of Daleth wherein a child is conceived, the womb in this case, is in the position of Da-ath and instead of the way we usually understand the false sephira’s place on the Tree of Life, in this case it is congruent with man’s fall from grace as marking the ontology of human experience, although for the invocation the magician represents all of these elements and the “Child” symbolizes the offspring of inspiration that results from union between the “Person” and the magician as pertaining to the small will.

“Love is the law, love under will.”

On the Masters of Verse:

 

On the Masters of Verse:

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

DE POETIS

For this reason is the Poet called the incarnation of the Zeitgeist, that is, of the Spirit or Will of his Period. So every Poet is also a Prophet, because when that which he sayeth is recognized in the impression as the Expression of their own Thought by Men, they translate this into Act so that, in the parlance of Folk vulgar and ignorant, "that which he foretold is come to pass". Now then the Poet is interpreter of the Hieroglyphs of the Hidden Will of Man in many a matter, some light, some deep, as it may be given unto him to do. Moreover, it is not altogether in the Word of any Poem, but in the quintessential Flavour of the Poet, that thou mayst seek this Prophesy. And this is an Art most necessary to every Statesman. Who but Shelley foretold the Fall of Christianity, and the Organization of Labour, and the Freedom of Women; who but Nietzsche declared the Principle at he Root of World-War? See thou clearly then that these Men were the Keys of the Dark Gates of the Future; Should not the Kings and their Ministers have taken heed thereto, fulfilling their Word without Conflict."

Aleister Crowley: Liber ALEPH

One can't blame Achad for trying, but a poet he most certainly was not.... In the world of literature it is commonly accepted that to analyze art by studying the diachronic unfolding of literary trends leads to more questions of causation than answers, and change seems to always come down to the influence of a select few individuals of every age who drastically impact the status quo, thus transforming literature and philosophy as a result into something new. There is always recognizable residue from the previous school in the current one, and from all the schools past, although the cause of this transformation had been impacted by the poet and not so much the school, and this residue is formal not cultural, as well it is accepted that in turn the zeitgeist's interactions with the text itself gives life to this change, and transforms the work into something greater as it becomes its reflection and changes into something magickal with the power to transform the collective mind of humanity. Indeed poetry is prophesy, and it seems, although a question I burden myself with, that the most irrelevant investigation is inquiring as to what the cause for this may be. God and religion was created by poets, as poetry speaks to us in images, the notion of cave paintings and the effect that these tales must have had on the children, inspiring magickal worlds of dreams inhabited by heroes and monsters, and gods and devils is at the unconscious centre of Man-Soul. The poet, unlike the priest needn't watch his words, he is able to say what he wants, or what he feels, not bound by dogma he is inspired by the world around him which is the true divine, absorbed in his love of humanity into a pedagogical fulfilment and guided by a search for Beauty, he expresses the Soul of the World in equivalence to his own experience, and having not been constrained by moralism, he is able to present such accurately and honestly, without pretense he is the voice of God. Without expectation or judgement, he stands bare before the soul of mankind --- armed only with the poetic perfection of Love and Truth.

“Love is the law, love under will.”