crowley aleister book of magic

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What is the length of this Temple?
From North to South.
What is the breadth of this Temple?
From East to West.
What is the height of this Temple?
From the Abyss to the Abyss.
There is, therefore, nothing movable or immovable under the whole firmament of heaven which is not included in
this pantacle, though it be but "eight inches in diameter, and in thickness half an inch."
Fire is not matter at all; water is a combination of elements; air almost entirely a mixture of elements; earth contains
all both in admixture and in combination.
So must it be with this Pantacle, the symbol of earth.
And as this Pantacle is made of pure wax, do not forget that "everything that lives is holy."
All phenomena are sacraments. Every fact, and even every falsehood, must enter into the Pantacle; it is the great
storehouse from which the Magician draws.
"In the brown cakes of corn we shall taste the food of the world and be strong."
with the Pantacle as the Paten of the Sacrament, though special instructions about it are given in Liber Legis. It is
composed of meal, honey, wine, holy oil, and blood.>> {99}
When speaking of the Cup, it was shown how every fact must be made significant, how every stone must have its
proper place in the mosaic. Woe were it were one stone misplaced! But that mosaic cannot be wrought at all, well or
ill, unless every stone be there.
These stones are the simple impressions or experiences; not one may be foregone.
Do not refuse anything merely because you know that it is the cup of Poison offered by your enemy; drink it with
confidence; it is he that will fall dead!
How can I give Cambodian art its proper place in art, if I have never heard of Cambodia? How can the Geologist
estimate the age of what lies beneath the chalk unless he have a piece of knowledge totally unconnected with geology,
the life-history of the animals of whom that chalk is the remains?
This then is a very great difficulty for the Magician. He cannot possibly have all experience, and though he may
console himself philosophically with the reflection that the Universe is conterminous with such experience as he has, he
will find it grow at such a pace during the early years of his life that he may almost be tempted to believe in the
possibility of experiences beyond his own, and from a practical standpoint he will seem to be confronted with so many
avenues of knowledge that he will be bewildered which to choose.
The ass hesitated between two thistles; how much more that greater ass, that incomparably greater ass, between two
thousand!
Fortunately it does not matter very much; but he should at least choose those branches of knowledge which abut
directly upon universal problems.
He should choose not one but several, and these should be as diverse as possible in nature.
It is important that he should strive to excel in some sport, and that that sport should be the one best calculated to
keep this body in health.
He should have a thorough grounding in classics, mathematics and science; also enough general knowledge of
modern languages and of the shifts of life to enable him to travel in any part of the world with ease and security.
History and geography he can pick up as he wants them; and what should interest him most in any subject is its links
with some other subject, so that his Pantacle may not lack what painters call "composition."
He will find that, however good his memory may be, ten thousand impressions enter his mind for every one that it is
able to retain even for a day. And the excellence of a memory lies in the wisdom of its selection.
The best memories so select and judge that practically {100} nothing is retained which has not some coherence with
the general plan of the mind.
All Pantacles will contain the ultimate conceptions of the circle and the cross, though some will prefer to replace the
cross by a point, or by a Tau, or by a triangle. The Vesica Pisces is sometimes used instead of the circle, or the circle
may be glyphed as a serpent. Time and space and the idea of causality are sometimes represented; so also are the three
stages in the history of philosophy, in which the three objects of study were successively Nature, God, and Man.
The duality of consciousness is also sometimes represented; and the Tree of Life itself may be figured therein, or the
categories. An emblem of the Great Work should be added. But the Pantacle will be imperfect unless each idea is
contrasted in a balanced manner with its opposite, and unless there is a necessary connection between each pair of ideas
and every other pair.
The Neophyte will perhaps do well to make the first sketches for his Pantacle very large and complex, subsequently
simplifying, not so much by exclusion as by combination, just as a Zoologist, beginning with the four great Apes and
Man, combines all in the single word "primate."
It is not wise to simplify too far, since the ultimate hieroglyphic must be an infinite. The ultimate resolution not
having been performed, its symbol must not be portrayed.
If any person were to gain access to V.V.V.V.V.,
World Himself.">> and ask Him to discourse upon any subject, there is little doubt that He could only comply by an
unbroken silence, and even that might not be wholly satisfactory, since the Tao Teh King says that the Tao cannot be
declared either by silence or by speech.
In this preliminary task of collecting materials, the idea of the Ego is not of such great moment; all impressions are
phases of the non-ego, and the Ego serves merely as a receptacle. In fact, to the well regulated mind, there is no
question but that the impressions are real, and that the mind, if not a "tabula rasa," is only not so because of the
"tendencies" or "innate ideas" which prevent some ideas from being received as readily as others.
not occur to a newly-hatched chicken to behave in the same way as a new-born child.>>
These "tendencies" must be combated: distasteful facts should be insisted upon until the Ego is perfectly indifferent
to the nature of its food.
"Even as the diamond shall glow red for the rose, and green for the rose-leaf, so shalt thou abide apart from the
Impressions."
This great task of separating the self from the impressions or "vrittis" {101} is one of the may meanings of the
aphorism "solve," corresponding to the "coagula" implied in Samadhi, and this Pantacle therefore represents all that we
are, the resultant of all that we had a tendency to be.
In the Dhammapada we read:
All that we are from mind results; on mind is founded, built of mind;
Who acts or speaks with evil thought him doth pain follow sure and blind.
So the ox plants his foot, and so the car wheel follows hard behind.
All that we are from mind results; on mind is founded, built of mind;
Who acts or speaks with righteous thought him happiness doth surely find.
So failing not the shadow falls for ever in its place assigned.
The Pantacle is then in a sense identical with the Karma or Kamma of the Magician.
The Karma of a man is his "ledger." The balance has not been struck and he does not know what it is; he does not
even fully know what debts he may have to pay, or what is owed him; nor does he know on what dates even those
payments which he anticipates may fall due.
A business conducted on such lines would be in a terrible mess; and we find in fact that man is in just such a mess.
While he is working day and night at some unimportant detail of his affairs, some giant force may be advancing "pede
claudo" to overtake him.
Many of the entries in this "ledger" are for the ordinary man necessarily illegible; the method of reading them is given
in that important instruction of the A.'.A.'. called "Thisharb," Liber CMXIII.
Now consider that this Karma is all that a man has or is. His ultimate object is to get rid of it completely -- when it
comes to the point of surrendering
only weakness but strength. How can the mystic surrender all, while he clings to his virtues?>> the Self to the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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