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.”