NMR ISSUE 16

All Together On This Earth
Astrological Forecast 16
Don't Save the Earth!
Editorial 16
Initiation and the Degree System
Letters 16
Metaphysical Messages of Addictions
New Virtual Economy
Rite to Reclaim the Power of the Snake
Snail
Spirit Lover
The Abyss and Beyond
The Eleventh House: Dreams or Destiny
The Oldest Magick
Three Magical Waters
Understanding Your Dreams
Why Love is the Law - A Primer
Winter Solstice

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The Birth and Education of a Magician

Part V: The Abyss and Beyond

Jill Duerr

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

For herein all the symbols are interchangeable, for each one containeth in itself its own opposite. And this is the great Mystery of the Supernals that are beyond the Abyss. For below the Abyss, contradiction is diversion; but above the Abyss, contradiction is unity. And there could be nothing true except by virtue of the contradiction that is contained in itself.

—The Vision and the Voice
(5th Aethyr)

We left the magician/student as a Babe of the Abyss, growing in the womb of its mother. As the above quote from The Vision and the Voice suggests, the Abyss and the three grades beyond it mark a sea change in the nature of the AA path. The neat, linear layout these articles have thus far followed now becomes difficult. It is like laying a two-dimensional grid on a four-dimensional landscape. I ask the reader to forgive the limitations of both the format and the writer.

Crowley left two major records of his own experience in the supernal grades, which are my major sources for this chapter. They are The Vision and the Voice (in Gems from the Equinox, or in an out-of-print 1972 Sangreal edition, if you can find it) and The Holy Books of Thelema (Weiser, 1988, 1983), specifically Liber B vel Magi and Liber Liberi vel Lapidus Lazuli.

The Abyss in these books is a place that joins utter horror with utter joy. Recall from the previous article that the Abyss is the home of the shadow sephira Daath, or Knowledge. In the Abyss, the magician encounters the limits of knowledge. It is in fact the limit of ego itself, of the organizing force that says, I am, the world is, everything is solid. It is a natural function of the human mind, but one reaches a point on the magickal path where one must transcend ego's limitations to contact the true nature of reality. Everything comes apart in the Abyss, and the great organized/disorganized chaos/cosmos comes to include the magician; one realizes Unity. Thus, from the point of view of ego, the Abyss is destruction and horror.

In The Vision and the Voice, the Abyss is inhabited by the demon Choronzon, him who is only a name. Crowley encounters Choronzon in the 10th Aethyr, which begins: There is no being in the outermost Abyss, but constant forms come forth from the nothingness of it. Choronzon is the illusion of form, and attempting to grapple with him as a real being is the great trap. In the text, he generates hallucinations and temptations, and babbles incoherently, mostly about his own power. Images, images, images. The malice of Choronzon is not the malice of a being; it is the quality of malice, because he that boasteth himself `I am I’ hath in truth no self. Choronzon is the process of ego exposed, twisting in the wind and spreading tentacles of deception in all directions, seeking something to which to attach. The entire job of Crowley and his scribe, Victor Neuburg, was to allow Choronzon no place to attach himself. Crowley did this by utter stillness and silence, while Neuburg tried to do it by banishing and resistance. Neuburg, in a note at the end of the Aethyr, says that he was wrong in trying to argue with Choronzon. Silence and concentration overcomes the demon. Choronzon is dispersion.

The Black Brother who enters the Abyss trying to hold onto ego and its territory is thus destroyed. The magician who enters the Abyss along the path of the magickal Will, having deliberately let go of all s/he has and is, learns what is beyond the veil, beyond the illusion of the individual self. The magician realizes that s/he is and always has been a part of the activity of the whole cosmos.

Thus, Liber Liberi vel Lapidus Lazuli is an invocation of and a song of union with, Pan, the life force itself in all its multiplicity.

Myself flung down the precipice of being
Even to the abyss, annihilation.
An end to loneliness, as to all.
Pan! Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan!

This is a work of piercing beauty, full of startling images. The seeker goes beyond the gray land to union with the god, who takes multiple forms as they journey through several incarnations. It is again sublimely erotic, Eros the force of joining, Love under Will.

Be done with speech, O God! Fasten the fangs of the hound eternity in this my throat! In the ruddy and awful cup of death we shall drink the blood of the world, and be drunken!

It is the point where apparent contradictions are joined.

This is the Abyss of Joy, and the Magister Templi (8=3) is born from it.

Lonely is he, and abominable; yet hath he gained the crown. Oh rejoice! Rejoice! My God! Oh my God! I am but a speck in the stardust of ages; I am the Master of the Secret of Things. (Liber Liberi vel Lapidus Lazuli)

Both the numbers of this grade have to do with form. On the path of the developing magician, it is Hod (8), the sphere of Mercury, of mental work, artistic expression, and magickal arts. The grade requires the magician to communicate skillfully. On the path of the student, Magister Templi is Binah (3), the primary sphere of form which corresponds with Saturn, with the sorrowing Mother and with the dark, bitter sea. Having transcended duality, matters of Form become the Magister Templi's charge. One Star in Sight calls Magister Templi the Master of Mysticism, that is, His Understanding [Binah] is entirely free from internal contradiction or external obscurity. He is the Master of the Law of Sorrow.

Thus the images which surround the Magister Templi in The Vision and the Voice are dark. The realm of the Masters in the 14th Aethyr appears as the city of the pyramids, in which each pyramid is a robed and veiled Master. Bowed are their backs, whereon resteth the universe. Veiled are their faces, that have beheld the glory of the ineffable. Verily is the Pyramid a Temple of Initiation. Verily also it is a tomb. For this is the Palace of Understanding: for thou art one with the Primeval things. The pyramids are also dust, the dust of the magicians who have totally dried up and cast away the personal self in union with the life force. The Magister is NEMO, no man, and an heap of dry dust in the city of the pyramids.

Yet the realm of the supernals is the realm of contradictions contained in unity. The text of the Magister Templi is The Book of Lies falsely so-called. Thus, the Magister Templi does not simply disappear, or become a characterless blob or a zombie, or any else that ego might imagine as egolessness. In fact, the Magister Templi is the force of magickal Will, of which the personal being of the magician is (and has been all along) the instrument. The author of the Holy Books of Thelema is V.V.V.V.V., Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici, By the force of Truth I have conquered the Universe while living. This name is Crowley's magickal motto as Magister Templi, but it also appears as a being who has been using Aleister Crowley as a vehicle, and who finally reveals himself as Magister Templi.

This is not a matter of possession, but the appearance of the True Will that has animated Crowley from the beginning. This force has, in the manifest world, characteristics. One has only to read Magick Without Tears, written in the last few years of Crowley's life, to realize that he remained until his last breath a singular character. Yet, at the grade of Magister Templi that character becomes a purposeful projection by which the Magister Templi communicates. his/her task is Form. He, the Master, inhabits this dwelling; but, having already got rid of it, he is able to allow it to carry on according to its nature without interference from the false Self (its head in Daath) which hitherto had hampered it.

(Magick Without Tears)

The Magister Templi is, in Buddhist terms, a bodhisattva. Having attained Understanding (Binah), s/he turns toward the world to help in the enlightenment of others. The task of the Magister Templi is to tend his `garden' of disciples, and to obtain a perfect understanding of the Universe. (One Star) These two go together: he must understand the separate nature and property of every flower, or how shall he tend his garden? (The Vision and the Voice, 13th Aethyr). But the Magister Templi works with no personal investment in the outcome. As the previous article noted, the further up the grades one goes, the more all-encompassing becomes the essential injunction to help others. The vow of the upper grades is to identify one's own Great Work with that of raising mankind to higher levels, spiritually, and in every other way. (Magick Without Tears) Since one has realized at the deepest level that one's star is not separate from the rest of the cosmos, this ceases to be a matter of morality and becomes an organic necessity. The grade simply functions that way, and a magician cannot achieve it otherwise. The Black Brother is destroyed in the Abyss.

Upon fully realizing the bodhisattvic practice of the renunciation of His enjoyment of the Infinite so that he may formulate Himself as the Finite, (One Star) the Magister Templi becomes a Magus (9=2). Whereas Magister Templi is about primary form, Magus is about primary activity. On the magician's path it is Yesod (9), the sphere just behind full manifestation. Kabbalistic literature often refers to Yesod as the genitals, the seed-bearing organs. This is most significant for the Magus's work. On the path of the now-advanced student, Magus is Chokmah (2), the outgoing masculine force that balances the supernal feminine of Binah. Chokmah on the Tree of Life is the first movement beyond the single point of Kether, the point becoming a line. Thus, the Magus's task is to make the fundamental statement of his/her universe.

In One Star, the essential characteristic of the Grade is that its possessor utters a Creative Magickal Word, which transforms the planet on which he lives by installation of new officers to preside over its initiation. Crowley goes on to say that, on the world stage, this only happens at the beginning of a new Aeon, when a new magickal formula is needed for the world to develop further. However, within the Order a person can achieve the grade of Magus by uttering the Word of an Aeon in terms of his/her own magickal working. The Magus is Master of Magick, and creates a new universe. At Chokmah (Wisdom), the Magus is Master of the Law of Change, whereas the Magister Templi at Binah (Understanding) was Master of the Law of Sorrow.

Liber B vel Magi is a short piece devoted entirely to the activity of the Magus and his/her passage to the final grade. This book and passages from The Vision and the Voice speak of the curse of the grade of Magus, which is simultaneously the Magus's work and the problem which the Magus must solve. The Magus stands at the last place that can be seen as separate from Kether, the Crown. Thus, the Magus is the guardian of Kether by presenting to the world below the fundamental appearance of duality, the Word spoken as apparently separate from the speaker. Here it is in The Vision and the Voice (6th Aethyr):

Behold, I stand ever before the Eternal One in the sign of the Enterer [Crowley's note: Of Horus, or of projection of energy]. And by virtue of my speech is he wrapped about in silence, and he is wrapped in mystery by me, who am the Unveiler of Mysteries. And although I be truth, yet do they call me rightly the God of Lies, for speech is two-fold, and truth is one.

The curse is that having slain this guardian, i.e., having become a Magus, one takes on that function and becomes the Maker of Illusions oneself. It is the final, naked meeting with paradox, near the end of a path shot through with paradox. The truth may not Pass the gate of the Abyss, the 6th Aethyr continues. Beyond the Abyss, everything contains its contradiction, falsehood and truth bound to each other.

Liber B puts the fundamental question the Magus must solve: How shall He destroy Himself? How then shall He end His speech with Silence? For He is Speech. The Magus must cease from action before he attain to That which existeth without Form. Yet, the Magus cannot simply abstain from action. Action is the Magus's very nature. S/he must speak Truth/Falsehood that the Law may be fulfilled. Again, as at the Abyss, the task is to throw oneself fully into the dilemma, rather than looking for a way past it. The Magus must meditate on Sorrow (Binah), Change (Chokmah) and Selflessness (Kether), raising it to the ultimate power of Infinity. Wherein Sorrow is Joy, and Change is Stability, and Selflessness is Self. For the interplay of the parts hath no action upon the whole. The book warns direly against refusing the curse and burden of the grade. It says that through assuming that curse the Magus shall achieve the Opening of the Grade of Ipsissimus: Here is Nothing under its three Forms.

Liber B likens the work of the Magus to a wheel, the axle of which the Magus doesn't know. Ipsissimus is the axle. At 10=1, it is the final manifestation of the magician in the world (Malkuth (10)) and the Crown of the student's work (Kether (1)). At Kether, it is beyond even the Word. The Mystery of this grade is the Mystery of Selflessness, or the Mystery of Pan, and Ipsissimus is the Master of the Law of Unsubstantiality.

There is little to say about this. One Star describes Ipsissimus as wholly free from all limitations so ever, existing in the nature of all things without discriminations of quantity or quality between them, in Him all is accomplished; as it is written `beyond the Word and the Fool, yea, beyond the Word and the Fool.’ Beyond this, Crowley says little. That is the nature of the grade. The Ipsissimus in One Star accepts the grade in the presence of one witness, and expresses the attainment through his/her actions, but says nothing of it to anyone, even others in the AA. Ipsissimus is sworn to withdraw Himself at once within the veils of his natural manifestation as a man.

The image I got of Ipsissimus while reading these few lines (and it is entirely a personal response) comes from the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures of Chinese Zen Buddhism. The older versions of these traditional teaching pictures stopped at number 8, the empty circle, where both the Ox (enlightened mind) and the seeker are transcended. This could be seen as the moment of attainment of 10=1. But the 12th century master Kakuan found this representation of the path incomplete. He added two more pictures. Reaching the Source, number 9, is like the Ipsissimus returning to simple humanity:

Dwelling in one's true abode,
unconcerned with that without—
The river flows tranquilly on
and flowers are red.

—trans. Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps

In the last picture, sometimes called Entering the Marketplace with Helping Hands, the sage is a simple man mingling with the people of the world. He does not set himself up as an enlightened person. Yet, by being present with every moment, he is working constantly to enlighten the whole world.

Barefooted and naked of breast,
I mingle with the people of the world.
My clothes are ragged and dust-laden,
and I am ever blissful.
I use no magic to extend my life;
Now, before me, the dead trees become alive.

Love is the law, love under Will.

1991, Jill Duerr