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ENERGIZED ENTHUSIASM
A.'.A.'. Class C
A NOTE ON THEURGY
I
I A O the supreme One of the Gnostics, the true God, is the Lord
of this work. Let us therefore invoke Him by that name which the
Companions of the royal Arch blaspheme to aid us in the essay to
declare the means which He has bestowed upon us!
II
The divine consciousness which is reflected and refracted in the
works of Genius feeds upon a certain secretion, as I believe. This
secretion is analogous to semen, but not identical with it. There
are but few men and fewer women, those women being invariably
androgyne, who possess it at any time in any quantity.
So closely is this secretion connected with the sexual economy
that it appears to me at times as if it might be a by-product of
that process which generates semen. That some form of this
doctrine has been generally accepted is shown in the prohibitions
of all religions. Sanctity has been assumed to depend on chastity,
and chastity has nearly always been interpreted as abstinence. But
I doubt whether the relation is so simple as this would imply; for
example, I find in myself that manifestations of mental creative
force always concur with some abnormal condition of the physical
powers of generation. But it is not the case that long periods of
chastity, on the one hand, or excess of orgies, on the other, are
favourable to its manifestation or even to its formation.
I know myself, and in me it is extremely strong; its results are
astounding.
For example, I wrote "Tannhauser," complete from
conception to execution, in sixty-seven consecutive hours. I was
unconscious of the fall of nights and days, even after stopping;
nor was there any reaction of fatigue. This work was written when
I was twenty-four years old, immediately on the completion of
an orgie which would normally have tired me out.
Often and often have I noticed that sexual satisfaction
so-called has left me dissatisfied and unfatigued, and let loose
the floods of verse which have disgraced my career.
Yet, on the contrary, a period of chastity has sometimes
fortified me for a great outburst. This is far from being
invariably the case. At the conclusion of the K 2 expedition,
after five months of chastity, I did no work whatever, barring very
few odd lyrics, for months afterwards.
I may mention the year 1911. At this time I was living, in
excellent good health, with the woman whom I loved. Her health
was, however, variable, and we were both constantly worried.
The weather was continuously fine and hot. For a period of
about three months I hardly missed a morning; always on waking I
burst out with a new idea which had to be written down.
The total energy of my being was very high. My weight was 10
stone 8 lb., which had been my fighting weight when I was ten years
younger. We walked some twenty miles daily through hilly forest.
The actual amount of MSS. written at this time is astounding;
their variety is even more so; of their excellence I will not
speak.
Here is a rough list from memory; it is far from exhaustive:
- Some dozen books of A.'. A.'. instruction, including liber Astarte, and the Temple of Solomon the King for "Equinox VII."
- Short Stories: The Woodcutter.
His Secret Sin. - Plays: His Majesty's Fiddler
Elder Eel
Adonis . } written straight off, one
The Ghouls. } after the other
Mortadello. - Poems: The Sevenfold Sacrament
A Birthday. - Fundamentals of the Greek Qabalah (involving the collection and analysis of several thousand words).
I think this phenomenon is unique in the history of literature.
I may further refer to my second journey to Algeria, where my
sexual life, though fairly full, had been unsatisfactory.
On quitting Biskra, I was so full of ideas that I had to get off
the train at El-Kantara, where I wrote "The Scorpion." Five or six
poems were written on the way to Paris; "The Ordeal of Ida
Pendragon" during my twenty-four hours' stay in Paris, and
"Snowstorm" and "The Electric Silence" immediately on my return to
England.
To sum up, I can always trace a connection between my sexual
condition and the condition of artistic creation, which is so close
as to approach identity, and yet so loose that I cannot predicate
a single important proposition.
It is these considerations which give me pain when I am
reproached by the ignorant with wishing to produce genius
mechanically. I may fail, but my failure is a thousand times
greater than their utmost success.
I shall therefore base my remarks not so much on the
observations which I have myself made, and the experiments which I
have tried, as on the accepted classical methods of producing that
energized enthusiasm which is the lever that moves God.
III
The Greeks say that there are three methods of discharging the
genial secretion of which I have spoken. They thought perhaps that
their methods tended to secrete it, but this I do not believe
altogether, or without a qualm. For the manifestation of force
implies force, and this force must have come from somewhere.
Easier I find it to say "subconsciousness" and "secretion" than to
postulate an external reservoir, to extend my connotation of "man"
than to invent "God."
However, parsimony apart, I find it in my
experience that it is useless to flog a tired horse. There are
times when I am absolutely bereft of even one drop of this elixir.
Nothing will restore it, neither rest in bed, nor drugs, nor
exercise. On the other hand, sometimes when after a severe spell
of work I have been dropping with physical fatigue, perhaps
sprawling on the floor, too tired to move hand or foot, the
occurrence of an idea has restored me to perfect intensity of
energy, and the working out of the idea has actually got rid of the
aforesaid physical fatigue, although it involved a great additional
labour.
Exactly parallel (nowhere meeting) is the case of mania. A
madman may struggle against six trained athletes for hours, and
show no sign of fatigue. Then he will suddenly collapse, but at a
second's notice from the irritable idea will resume the struggle as
fresh as ever. Until we discovered "unconscious muscular action"
and its effects, it was rational to suppose such a man "possessed
of a devil"; and the difference between the madman and the
genius is not in the quantity but in the quality of their work.
Genius is organized, madness chaotic. Often the organization of
genius is on original lines, and ill-balanced and ignorant
medicine-men mistake it for disorder.
Time has shown that Whistler and Gauguin "kept rules" as well as
the masters whom they were supposed to be upsetting.
IV
The Greeks say that there are three methods of discharging the
Lyden Jar of Genius. These three methods they assign to three
Gods.
These three Gods are Dionysus, Apollo, Aphrodite. In English:
wine, woman and song.
Now it would be a great mistake to imagine that the Greeks were
recommending a visit to a brothel. As well condemn the High Mass
at St. Peter's on the strength of having witnessed a Protestant
revival meeting. Disorder is always a parody of order, because
there is no archetypal disorder that it might resemble. Owen
Seaman can parody a poet; nobody can parody Owen Seaman. A critic
is a bundle of impressions; there is no ego behind it. All
photographs are essentially alike; the works of all good painters
essentially differ.
Some writers suppose that in the ancient rites of Eleusis the
High Priest publicly copulated with the High Priestess. Were this
so, it would be no more "indecent" than it is "blasphemous" for the
priest to make bread and wine into the body and blood of God.
True, the Protestants say that it is blasphemous; but a
Protestant is one to whom all things sacred are profane, whose mind
being all filth can see nothing in the sexual act but a crime or a
jest, whose only facial gestures are the sneer and the leer.
Protestantism is the excrement of human thought, and accordingly
in Protestant countries art, if it exist at all, only exists to
revolt. Let us return from this unsavoury allusion to our
consideration of the methods of the Greeks.
V
Agree then that it does not follow from the fact that wine,
woman and song make the sailor's tavern that these ingredients must
necessarily concoct a hell-broth.
There are some people so simple as to think that, when they have
proved the religious instinct to be a mere efflorescence of the
sex-instinct, they have destroyed religion.
We should rather consider that the sailor's tavern gives him his
only glimpse of heaven, just as the destructive criticism of the
phallicists has only proved sex to be a sacrament. Consciousness,
says the materialist, axe in hand, is a function of the brain. He
has only re-formulated the old saying, "Your bodies are the temples
of the Holy Ghost."!
Now sex is justly hallowed in this sense, that it is the eternal
fire of the race. Huxley admitted that "some of the lower
animalculae are in a sense immortal," because they go on
reproducing eternally by fission, and however often you divide "x"
by 2 there is always something left. But he never seems
to have seen that mankind is immortal in exactly the same sense,
and goes on reproducing itself with similar characteristics through
the ages, changed by circumstance indeed, but always identical in
itself. But the spiritual flower of this process is that at the
moment of discharge a physical ecstasy occurs, a spasm analogous to
the mental spasm which meditation gives. And further, in
the sacramental and ceremonial use of the sexual act, the divine
consciousness may be attained.
VI
The sexual act being then a sacrament, it remains to consider in
what respect this limits the employment of the organs.
First, it is obviously legitimate to employ them for their
natural physical purpose. But if it be allowable to use them
ceremonially for a religious purpose, we shall find the act hedged
about with many restrictions.
For in this case the organs become holy. It matters little to
mere propagation that men should be vicious; the most debauched
roue might and almost certainly would beget more healthy children
than a semi-sexed prude. So the so-called "moral" restraints are
not based on reason; thus they are neglected.
But admit its religious function, and one may at once lay down
that the act must not be profaned. It must not be undertaken
lightly and foolishly without excuse.
It may be undertaken for the direct object of continuing the
race.
It may be undertaken in obedience to real passion; for passion,
as the name implies, is rather inspired by a force of divine
strength and beauty without the will of the individual, often even
against it.
It is the casual or habitual --- what Christ called "idle" ---
use or rather abuse of these forces which constitutes their
profanation. It will further be obvious that, if the act in itself
is to be the sacrament in a religious ceremony, this act must be
accomplished solely for the love of God.
All personal considerations must be banished utterly. Just as any
priest can perform the miracle of transubstantiation, so can any
man, possessing the necessary qualifications, perform this other
miracle, whose nature must form the subject of a subsequent
discussion.
Personal aims being destroyed, it is "a fortiori" necessary to
neglect social and other similar considerations.
Physical strength and beauty are necessary and desirable for
aesthetic reasons, the attention of the worshippers being liable to
distraction if the celebrants are ugly, deformed, or incompetent.
I need hardly emphasize the necessity for the strictest
self-control and concentration on their part. As it would be
blasphemy to enjoy the gross taste of the wine of the sacrament,
so must the celebrant suppress even the minutest manifestation of
animal pleasure.
Of the qualifying tests there is no necessity to speak; it is
sufficient to say that the adepts have always known how to secure
efficiency.
Needless also to insist on a similar quality in the assistants;
the sexual excitement must be suppressed and transformed into its
religious equivalent.
VII
With these preliminaries settle in order to guard against
foreseen criticisms of those Protestants who, God having made them
a little lower than the Angels, have made themselves a great deal
lower than the beasts by their consistently bestial interpretation
of all things human and divine, we may consider first the triune
nature of these ancient methods of energizing enthusiasm.
Music has two parts; tone or pitch, and rhythm. The latter
quality associates it with the dance, and that part of dancing
which is not rhythm is sex. Now that part of sex which is not a
form of the dance, animal movement, is intoxication of the soul,
which connects it with wine. Further identities will suggest
themselves to the student.
By the use of the three methods in one the whole being of man
may thus be stimulated.
The music will create a general harmony of the brain, leading it
in its own paths; the wine affords a general stimulus of the
animal nature; and the sex-excitement elevates the moral nature of
the man by its close analogy with the highest ecstasy. It remains,
however, always for him to make the final transmutation. Unless he
have the special secretion which I have postulated, the result will
be commonplace.
So consonant is this system with the nature of man that it is
exactly parodied and profaned not only in the sailor's tavern, but
in the society ball. Here, for the lowest natures the result is
drunkenness, disease and death; for the middle natures a gradual
blunting of the finer feelings; for the higher, an exhilaration
amounting at the best to the foundation of a life-long love.
If these Society "rites" are properly performed, there should be
no exhaustion. After a ball, one should feel the need of a long
walk in the young morning air. The weariness or boredom, the
headache or somnolence, are Nature's warnings.
VIII
Now the purpose of such a ball, the moral attitude on entering,
seems to me to be of supreme importance. If you go with the idea
of killing time, you are rather killing yourself. Baudelaire
speaks of the first period of love when the boy kisses the trees of
the wood, rather than kiss nothing. At the age of thirty-six I
found myself at Pompeii, passionately kissing that
great grave statue of a woman that stands in the avenue of the
tombs. Even now, as I wake in the morning, I sometimes fall to
kissing my own arms.
It is with such a feeling that one should go to a ball, and with
such a feeling intensified, purified and exalted, that one should
leave
it.
If this be so, how much more if one go with the direct
religious purpose burning in one's whole being! Beethoven roaring
at the sunrise is no strange spectacle to me, who shout with joy
and wonder, when I understand (without which one cannot really be
said ever to see) a blade of grass. I fall upon my knees in
speechless adoration at the moon; I hide my eyes in holy awe from
a good Van Gogh.
Imagine then a ball in which the music is the choir celestial,
the wine the wine of the Graal, or that of the Sabbath of the
Adepts, and one's partner the Infinite and Eternal One, the True
and Living God Most High!
Go even to a common ball --- the Moulin de la Galette will serve
even the least of my magicians --- with your whole soul aflame
within you, and your whole will concentrated on these
...ansubstantiations, and tell me what miracle takes place!
It is the hate of, the distaste for, life that sends one to the
ball when one is old; when one is young one is on springs until the
hour falls; but the love of God, which is the only true love,
diminishes not with age; it grows deeper and intenser with every
satisfaction. It seems as if in the noblest men this secretion
constantly increases --- which certainly suggests an external
reservoir --- so that age loses all its bitterness. We find
"Brother Lawrence," Nicholas Herman of Lorraine, at the age of
eighty in continuous enjoyment of union with God. Buddha at an
equal age would run up and down the Eight High Trances like an
acrobat on a ladder; stories not too dissimilar are told of Bishop
Berkeley. Many persons have not attained union at all until middle
age, and then have rarely lost it.
It is true that genius in the ordinary sense of the word has
nearly always showed itself in the young. Perhaps we should regard
such cases as Nicholas Herman as cases of acquired genius.
Now I am certainly of opinion that genius can be acquired, or,
in the alternative, that it is an almost universal possession. Its
rarity may be attributed to the crushing influence of a corrupted
society. It is rare to meet a youth without high ideals, generous
thoughts, a sense of holiness, of his own importance, which, being
interpreted, is, of his own identity with God. Three years in the
world, and he is a bank clerk or even a government official. Only
those who intuitively understand from early boyhood that they
must stand out, and who have the incredible courage and endurance
to do so in the face of all that tyranny, callousness, and the
scorn of inferiors can do;
only these arrive at manhood uncontaminated.
Every serious or spiritual thought is made a jest; poets are
thought "soft" and "cowardly," apparently because they are the only
boys with a will of their own and courage to hold out against the
whole school, boys and masters in league as once were Pilate and
Herod; honour is replaced by expediency, holiness by hypocrisy.
Even where we find thoroughly good seed sprouting in favourable
ground, too often is there a frittering away of the forces. Facile
encouragement of a poet or painter is far worse for him than any
amount of opposition.
Here again the sex question (S.Q. so-called by Tolstoyans,
chastity-mongers, nut-fooders, and such who talk and think of
nothing else) intrudes its horrid head. I believe that every boy
is originally conscious of sex as sacred. But he does not know
what it is. With infinite diffidence he asks. The master
replies with holy horror; the boy with a low leer, a furtive laugh,
perhaps worse.
I am inclined to agree with the Head Master of Eton that
paederastic passions among schoolboys "do no harm"; further, I
think them the only redeeming feature of sexual life at public
schools.1
The Hindoos are wiser. At the well-watched hour of puberty the
boy is prepared as for a sacrament; he is led to a duly consecrated
temple, and there by a wise and holy woman, skilled in the art, and
devoted to this end, he is initiated with all solemnity into the
mystery of life.
The act is thus declared religious, sacred, impersonal, utterly
apart from amorism and eroticism and animalism and sentimentalism
and all the other vilenesses that Protestantism has made of it.
The Catholic Church did, I believe, to some extent preserve the
Pagan tradition. Marriage is a sacrament.2 But in the attempt to deprive the act of all accretions
which would profane it, the Fathers of the Church added in spite of
themselves other accretions which profaned it more. They tied it
to property and inheritance. They wished it to serve both God and
Mammon.
Rightly restraining the priest, who should employ his whole
energy in the miracle of the Mass, they found their counsel a
counsel of perfection. The magical tradition was in part lost;
the priest could not do what was expected of him, and the
unexpended portion of his energy turned sour.
Hence the thoughts of priests, like the thoughts of modern
faddists, revolved eternally around the S.Q.
A special and Secret Mass, a Mass of the Holy Ghost, a Mass of
the Mystery of the Incarnation, to be performed at stated
intervals, might have saved both monks and nuns, and given the
Church eternal dominion of the world.
IX
To return. The rarity of genius is in great part due to the
destruction of its young. Even as in physical life that is a
favoured plant one of whose thousand seeds ever shoots forth a
blade, so do conditions kill all but the strongest sons of genius.
But just as rabbits increased apace in Australia, where even a
missionary has been known to beget ninety children in two years, so
shall we be able to breed genius if we can find the conditions
which hamper it, and remove them.
The obvious practical step to take is to restore the rites of
Bacchus, Aphrodite and Apollo to their proper place. They should
not be open to every one, and manhood should be the reward of
ordeal and initiation.
The physical tests should be severe, and weaklings should be
killed out rather than artificially preserved. The same remark
applies to intellectual tests. But such tests should be as wide as
possible. I was an absolute duffer at school in all forms of
athletics and games, because I despised them. I held, and still
hold, numerous mountaineering world's records. Similarly,
examinations fail to test intelligence. Cecil Rhodes refused to
employ any man with a University degree. That such degrees lead to
honour in England is a sign of England's decay, though even in
England they are usually the stepping-stones to clerical idleness
or pedagogic slavery.
Such is a dotted outline of the picture that I wish to draw. If
the power to possess property depended on a man's competence, and
his perception of real values, a new aristocracy would at once be
created, and the deadly fact that social consideration varies with
the power of purchasing champagne would cease to be a fact. Our
pluto-hetairo-politicocracy would fall in a day.
But I am only too well aware that such a picture is not likely
to be painted. We can then only work patiently and in secret. We
must select suitable material and train it in utmost reverence to
these three master-methods, or aiding the soul in its genial
orgasm.
X
This reverent attitude is of an importance which I cannot
over-rate. Normal people find normal relief from any general or
special excitement in the sexual act.
Commander Marston, R.N., whose experiments in the effect of the
tom-tom on the married Englishwoman are classical and conclusive,
has admirably described how the vague unrest which she at first
shows gradually assumes the sexual form, and culminates, if allowed
to do so, in shameless masturbation or indecent advances. But this
is a natural corollary of the proposition that married Englishwomen
are usually unacquainted with sexual satisfaction.
Their desires are constantly stimulated by brutal and ignorant
husbands, and never gratified. This fact again accounts for the
amazing prevalence of Sapphism in London Society.
The Hindus warn their pupils against the dangers of breathing
exercises. Indeed the slightest laxness in moral or physical
tissues may cause the energy accumulated by the practice to
discharge itself by involuntary emission. I have known this happen
in my own experience.
It is then of the utmost importance to realize that the relief
of the tension is to be found in what the Hebrews and the Greeks
called prophesying, and which is better when organized into art.
The disorderly discharge is mere waste, a wilderness of howlings;
the orderly discharge is a "Prometheus unbound," or a L'age
d'airain," according to the special aptitudes of the enthused
person. But it must be remembered that special aptitudes
are very easy to acquire if the driving force of enthusiasm be
great. If you cannot keep the rules of others, you make rules of
your own. One set turns out in the long run to be just as good as
another.
Henry Rousseau, the duanier, was laughed at all his life. I
laughed as heartily as the rest; though, almost despite myself, I
kept on saying (as the phrase goes) "that I felt something;
couldn't say what."
The moment it occurred to somebody to put up all his paintings
in one room by themselves, it was instantly apparent that his
"naivete" was the simplicity of a Master.
Let no one then imagine that I fail to perceive or underestimate
the dangers of employing these methods. The occurrence even of so
simple a matter as fatigue might change a LasMeninas into a stupid
sexual crisis.
It will be necessary for most Englishmen to emulate the
self-control of the Arabs and Hindus, whose ideal is to deflower
the greatest possible number of virgins --- eighty is considered a
fairly good performance --- without completing the act.
It is, indeed, of the first importance for the celebrant in any
phallic rite to be able to complete the act without even once
allowing a sexual or sensual thought to invade his mind. The mind
must be as absolutely detached from one's own body as it is from
another person's.
XI
Of musical instruments few are suitable. The human voice is the
best, and the only one which can be usefully employed in chorus.
Anything like an orchestra implies infinite rehearsal, and
introduces an atmosphere of artificiality. The organ is a worthy
solo instrument, and is an orchestra in itself, while its tone and
associations favour the religious idea.
The violin is the most useful of all, for its every mood
expresses the hunger for the infinite, and yet it is so mobile that
it has a greater emotional range than any of its competitors.
Accompaniment must be dispensed with, unless a harpist be
available.
The harmonium is a horrible instrument, if only because of its
associations; and the piano is like unto it, although, if unseen
and played by a Paderewski, it would serve.
The trumpet and the bell are excellent, to startle, at the
crisis of a ceremony.
Hot, drubbing, passionate, in a different class of ceremony, a
class more intense and direct, but on the whole less exalted, the
tom-tom stands alone. It combines well with the practice of
mantra, and is the best accompaniment for any sacred dance.
XII
Of sacred dances the most practical for a gathering is the
seated dance. One sits cross-legged on the floor, and sways to and
fro from the hips in time with the mantra. A solo or duet of
dancers as a spectacle rather distracts from this exercise. I
would suggest a very small and very brilliant light on
the floor in the middle of the room. Such a room is best floored
with mosaic marble; an ordinary Freemason's Lodge carpet is not a
bad thing3.
The eyes, if they see anything at all, see then only the
rhythmical or mechanical squares leading in perspective to the
simple unwinking light.
The swinging of the body with the mantra (which has a habit of
rising and falling as if of its own accord in a very weird way)
becomes more accentuated; ultimately a curiously spasmodic stage
occurs, and then the consciousness flickers and goes out; perhaps
breaks through into the divine consciousness, perhaps is merely
recalled to itself by some variable in external impression.
The above is a very simple description of a very simple and
earnest form of ceremony, based entirely upon rhythm.
It is very easy to prepare, and its results are usually very
encouraging for the beginner.
XIII
Wine being a mocker and strong drink raging, its use is more
likely to lead to trouble than mere music.
One essential difficulty is dosage. One needs exactly enough;
and, as Blake points out, one can only tell what is enough by
taking too much. For each man the dose varies enormously; so does
it for the same man at different times.
The ceremonial escape from this is to have a noiseless attendant
to bear the bowl of libation, and present it to each in turn, at
frequent intervals.
Small doses should be drunk, and the bowl passed on, taken as the
worshipper deems advisable. Yet the cup-bearer should be an
initiate, and use his own discretion before presenting the bowl.
The slightest sign that intoxication is mastering the man should be
a sign to him to pass that man. This practice can be easily fitted
to the ceremony previously described.
If desired, instead of wine, the elixir introduced by me to
Europe4 may be employed. But its results, if used in this way, have
not as yet been thoroughly studied. It is my immediate purpose to
repair this neglect.
XIV
The sexual excitement, which must complete the harmony of
method, offers a more difficult problem.
It is exceptionally desirable that the actual bodily movements
involved should be decorous in the highest sense, and many people
are so ill-trained that they will be unable to regard such a
ceremony with any but critical or lascivious eyes; either would be
fatal to all the good already done. It is presumably better to
wait until all present are greatly exalted before risking a
profanation.
It is not desirable, in my opinion, that the ordinary
worshippers should celebrate in public.
The sacrifice should be single.
Whether or no ...
XV
Thus far had I written when the distinguished poet, whose
conversation with me upon the Mysteries had incited me to jot down
these few rough notes, knocked at my door. I told him that I was
at work on the ideas suggested by him, and that --- well, I was
rather stuck. He asked permission to glance at the MS. (for he
reads English fluently, though speaking but a few words), and
having done so, kindled and said: "If you come with me now, we will
finish your essay." Glad enough of any excuse to stop working, the
more plausible the better, I hastened to take down my coat and hat.
"By the way," he remarked in the automobile, "I take it that you
do not mind giving me the Word of Rose Croix." Surprised, I
exchanged the secrets of I.N.R.I. with him. "And now, very
excellent and perfect Prince," he said, "what follows is under this
seal." And he gave me the most solemn of all Masonic tokens. "You
are about," said he, "to compare your ideal with our real."
He touched a bell. The automobile stopped, and we got out. He
dismissed the chauffeur. "Come," he said, "we have a brisk
half-mile." We walked through thick woods to an old house, where
we were greeted in silence by a gentleman who, though in court
dress, wore a very "practicable" sword. On satisfying him, we were
passed through a corridor to an anteroom, where another armed
guardian awaited us. He, after a further examination, proceeded
to offer me a court dress, the insignia of a Sovereign Prince of
Rose Croix, and a garter and mantle, the former of green silk, the
latter of green velvet, and lined with cerise silk. "It is a low
mass," whispered the guardian. In this anteroom were three or four
others, both ladies and gentlemen, busily robing.
In a third room we found a procession formed, and joined it.
There were twenty-six of us in all. Passing a final guardian we
reached the chapel itself, at whose entrance stood a young man and
a young woman, both dressed in simple robes of white silk
embroidered with gold, red and blue. The former bore a torch of
resinous wood, the latter sprayed us as we passed with attar
of roses from a cup.
The room in which we now were had at one time been a chapel; so
much its shape declared. But the high altar was covered with a
cloth that displayed the Rose and Cross, while above it were ranged
seven candelabra, each of seven branches.
The stalls had been retained; and at each knight's hand burned
a taper of rose-coloured wax, and a bouquet of roses was before
him.
In the centre of the nave was a great cross --- a "calvary cross
of ten squares," measuring, say, six feet by five --- painted in
red upon a white board, at whose edge were rings through which
passed gilt staves. At each corner was a banner, bearing lion,
bull, eagle and man, and from the top of their staves sprang a
canopy of blue, wherein were figured in gold the twelve emblems of
the Zodiac.
Knights and Dames being installed, suddenly a bell tinkled in
the architrave. Instantly all rose. The doors opened at a trumpet
peal from without, and a herald advanced, followed by the High
Priest and Priestess.
The High Priest was a man of nearly sixty years, if I may judge
by the white beard; but he walked with the springy yet assured step
of the thirties. The High Priestess, a proud, tall sombre woman of
perhaps thirty summers, walked by his side, their hands raised and
touching as in the minuet. Their trains were borne by the two
youths who had admitted us.
All this while an unseen organ played an Introit.
This ceased as they took their places at the altar. They faced
West, waiting.
On the closing of the doors the armed guard, who was clothed in
a scarlet robe instead of green, drew his sword, and went up and
down the aisle, chanting exorcisms and swinging the great sword.
All present drew their swords and faced outward, holding the points
in front of them. This part of the ceremony appeared interminable.
When it was over the girl and boy reappeared; bearing, the one a
bowl, the other a censer. Singing some litany or other, apparently
in Greek, though I could not catch the words, they purified and
consecrated the chapel.
Now the High Priest and High Priestess began a litany in
rhythmic lines of equal length. At each third response they
touched hands in a peculiar manner; at each seventh they kissed.
The twenty-first was a complete embrace. The bell tinkled in the
architrave; and they parted. The High Priest then took from the
altar a flask curiously shaped to imitate a phallus. The High
Priestess knelt and presented a boat-shaped cup of gold. He knelt
opposite her, and did not pour from the flask.
Now the Knights and Dames began a long litany; first a Dame in
treble, then a Knight in bass, then a response in chorus of all
present with the organ.
This Chorus was:
EVOE HO, IACCHE! EPELTHON, EPELTHON, EVOE, IAO!
Again and again it rose and fell. Towards its close, whether by "stage effect" or no I could not swear, the light over the altar grew rosy, then purple. The High Priest sharply and suddenly threw up his hand; instant silence.
He now poured out the wine from the flask. The High Priestess
gave it to the girl attendant, who bore it to all present.
This was no ordinary wine. It has been said of vodki that it
looks like water and tastes like fire. With this wine the reverse
is the case. It was of a rich fiery gold in which flames of light
danced and shook, but its taste was limpid and pure like fresh
spring water. No sooner had I drunk of it, however, that I began
to tremble. It was a most astonishing sensation; I can imagine a
man feel thus as he awaits his executioner, when he has passed
through fear, and is all excitement.
I looked down my stall, and saw that each was similarly
affected. During the libation the High Priestess sang a hymn,
again in Greek. This time I recognized the words; they were those
of an ancient Ode to Aphrodite.
The boy attendant now descended to the red cross, stooped and
kissed it; then he danced upon it in such a way that he seemed to
be tracing the patterns of a marvellous rose of gold, for the
percussion caused a shower of bright dust to fall from the canopy.
Meanwhile the litany (different words, but the same chorus) began
again. This time it was a duet between the High Priest andPriestess. At each chorus Knights and Dames bowed low.
The girl moved round continuously, and the bowl passed.
This ended in the exhaustion of the boy, who fell fainting on
the cross. The girl immediately took the bowl and put it to his
lips. Then she raised him, and, with the assistance of the
Guardian of the Sanctuary, led him out of the chapel.
The bell again tinkled in the architrave.
The herald blew a fanfare.
The High Priest and High Priestess moved stately to each other
and embraced, in the act unloosing the heavy golden robes which
they wore. These fell, twin lakes of gold. I now saw her dressed
in a garment of white watered silk, lined throughout (as it
appeared later) with ermine.
The High Priest's vestment was an elaborate embroidery of every
colour, harmonized by exquisite yet robust art. He wore also a
breastplate corresponding to the canopy; a sculptured "beast" at
each corner in gold, while the twelve signs of the Zodiac were
symbolized by the stones of the breastplace.
The bell tinkled yet again, and the herald again sounded his
trumpet. The celebrants moved hand in hand down the nave while the
organ thundered forth its solemn harmonies.
All the knights and Dames rose and gave the secret sign of the
Rose Croix.
It was at this part of the ceremony that things began to happen
to me.
I became suddenly aware that my body had lost both weight and
tactile
sensibility. My consciousness seemed to be situated no longer in
my body. I "mistook myself," if I may use the phrase, for one of
the stars in the canopy.
In this way I missed seeing the celebrants actually approach the
cross. The bell tinkled again; I came back to myself, and then
I saw that the High Priestess, standing at the foot of the cross,
had thrown her robe over it, so that the cross was no longer
visible. There was only a board covered with ermine. She was now
naked but for her coloured and jewelled head-dress and the heavy
torque of gold about her neck, and the armlets and anklets that
matched it. She began to sing in a soft strange tongue, so low and
smoothly that in my partial bewilderment I could not hear all; but
I caught a few words, Io Paian! Io Pan! and a phrase in which the
words Iao Sabao ended emphatically a sentence in which I caught the
words Eros, Thelema and Sebazo.
While she did this she unloosed the breastplate and gave it to
the girl attendant. The robe followed; I saw that they were naked
and unashamed. For the first time there was absolute silence.
Now, from an hundred jets surrounding the board poured forth a
perfumed purple smoke. The world was wrapt in a fond gauze of
mist, sacred as the clouds upon the mountains.
Then at a signal given by the High Priest, the bell tinkled once
more. The celebrants stretched out their arms in the form of a
cross, interlacing their fingers. Slowly they revolved through
three circles and a half. She then laid him down upon the cross,
and took her own appointed place.
The organ now again rolled forth its solemn music.
I was lost to everything. Only this I saw, that the celebrants
made no expected motion. The movements were extremely small and
yet extremely strong.
This must have continued for a great length of time. To me it
seemed as if eternity itself could not contain the variety and
depth of my experiences. Tongue nor pen could record them; and yet
I am fain to attempt the impossible.
- I was, certainly and undoubtedly, the star in the canopy.
This star was an incomprehensibly enormous world of pure flame. - I suddenly realized that the star was of no size whatever.
It was not that the star shrank, but that it (= I) became suddenly conscious of infinite space. - An explosion took place. I was in consequence a point of light, infinitely small, yet infinitely bright, and this point was "without position."
- Consequently this point was ubiquitous, and there was a feeling of infinite bewilderment, blinded after a very long time by a gush of infinite rapture (I use the word "blinded" as if under constraint; I should have preferred to use the words "blotted out" or "overwhelmed" or "illuminated").
- This infinite fullness --- I have not described it as such, but it was that --- was suddenly changed into a feeling of infinite emptiness, which became conscious as a yearning.
- These two feelings began to alternate, always with suddenness, and without in any way overlapping, with great rapidity.
- This alternation must have occurred fifty times --- I had rather have said an hundred.
- The two feelings suddenly became one. Again the word explosion is the only one that gives any idea of it.
- I now seemed to be conscious of everything at once, that it was at the same time "one" and "many." I say "at once," that is, I was not successively all things, but instantaneously.
- This being, if I may call it being, seemed to drop into an infinite abyss of Nothing.
- While this "falling" lasted, the bell suddenly tinkled three times. I instantly became my normal self, yet with a constant awareness, which has never left me to this hour, that the truth of the matter is not this normal "I" but "That" which is still dropping into Nothing. I am assured by those who know that I may be able to take up the thread if I attend another ceremony.
The tinkle died away. The girl attendant ran quickly forward
and folded the ermine over the celebrants. The herald blew a
fanfare, and the Knights and Dames left their stalls. Advancing to
the board, we took hold of the gilded carrying poles, and followed
the herald in procession out of the chapel, bearing the litter to
a small side-chapel leading out of the middle anteroom, where we
left it, the guard closing the doors.
In silence we disrobed, and left the house. About a mile
through the woods we found my friend's automobile waiting.
I asked him, if that was a low mass, might I not be permitted to
witness a High Mass?
"Perhaps," he answered with a curious smile, "if all they tell
of you is true."
In the meanwhile he permitted me to describe the ceremony and
its results as faithfully as I was able, charging me only to give
no indication of the city near which it took place.
I am willing to indicate to initiates of the Rose Croix degree
of Masonry under proper charter from the genuine authorities (for
there are spurious Masons working under a forged charter) the
address of a person willing to consider their fitness to affiliate
to a Chapter practising similar rites.
XVI
I consider it supererogatory to continue my essay on the
Mysteries and my analysis of "Energized Enthusiasm."
[The following appeared in Crowley’s editorial to Equinox I (10); the bulk of it is Crowley quoting G.R.S. Mead quoting from De Vita Contemplativa by Philo of Alexandria, a Hellenized Jewish writer of the first century E.V. — T.S.]
With regard to the article in No. 9, “Energized Enthusiasm,” a circumstance of exceptional interest has arisen. The author was not acquainted at that time with the literature of those gnostics who were the earliest and only true Christians. In Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, however, we find the following passage:
“"After the banquet they keep the holy all-night festival. And this is how it is kept. They all stand up in a body, and about the middle of the entertainment they first of all separate into two bands, men in one and women in the other. And a leader is chosen for each, the conductor whose reputation is greatest and the one most suitable for the post. They then chants hymns made in God’s honour in many metres and melodies, sometimes singing in chorus, sometimes on band beating time to the answering chant of the other, (now) dancing to its music, (now) inspiring it, at one time in processional hymns, at another in standing songs, turning and re-turning in the dance.
"Then when each band has feasted (that is, has sung and danced) apart by itself, drinking of God-pleasing (nectar), just as in the Bacchic rites men drink the wine unmixed, then they join together and one chorus is formed of the two bands, in imitation of the joined chorus on the banks of the Red Sea, because of the wonderful works that had been there wrought. For the sea at God's command became for one party a cause of safety and for the other a cause of ruin.
[Philo here refers to the fabled dance of triumph of the Israelites at the destruction of Pharaoh and his host, when Moses led the men and Miriam the women in a common dance; but the Therapeuts all over the world could not have traced the custom to a common myth.]
"So the chorus of men and women Therapeuts, being formed as closely as possible on this model, by means of melodies in parts and harmony—the high notes of the women answering to the deep tones of the men—produces a harmonious and most musical symphony. The ideas are of the most beautiful, the expressions of the most beautiful, and the dancers reverent; while the goal of the ideas, expressions, and dances is piety.
"Thus drunken unto morning's light with this fair drunkenness, with no head-heaviness or drowsiness, but with eyes and body fresher even than when they came to the banquet, they take their stand at dawn, when, catching sight of the rising sun, they raise their hands to heaven, praying for sunlight and truth and keenness of spiritual vision. After this prayer each returns to his own sanctuary, to his accustomed traffic in philosophy and labour in its fields.
"So far then about the Therapeuts, who are devoted to the contemplation of nature and live in it and in the soul alone, citizens of heaven and the world, legitimately recommended to the Father and Creator of the Universe by their virtue, which procures them His love, virtue that sets before it for its prize the most suitable reward of nobility and goodness, outstripping every gift of fortune and the first comer in the race to the very goal of blessedness."
The striking identity of this with the account of the ritual derived from a priori considerations will at once be manifest.
Transcriber’s note
This work was first published in Equinox I (9) without a number or author credit, though internal evidence clearly identified the author as Crowley. It was subsequently declared to be Liber DCCCXI (= IAW) A∴A∴, Class C (it is not listed in the 1913 “Syllabus” but this may have been an editorial error since no other Liber 811 is listed there, and 811 appears in the list explaining why numbers have been given to works; the classification is mentioned in Crowley’s correspondence with C.S. Jones, and the work is cited as Liber 811 in the Blue Equinox). It was also said to be an ‘adumbration’ of Liber IAO (XVII), an unpublished (believed lost) Class D text which supposedly describes meditation-practices based on the three ‘enthusiasms’ discussed above.
The four kinds of ‘enthusiasm’ or ‘divine madness’ (the first
being poetic inspiration from the nine Muses) are discussed in
Plato's Phaedrus and treated of by Renaissance writers such as
Ficino in his commentary on the Symposium, Agrippa in De occulta
philosophia lib. III cap. 45-49, and Giordano Bruno in De gli eroici
furori (for which see Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic
Tradition).
In connection with the three “enthusiasms” mentioned here, there is
evidence that Crowley referred the letters of IAO to Iacchus, Asi
(Isis) or Aphrodite and `Orus (permissible since H is not a letter
in Greek), the latter as a cognate of Apollo.
The reference to “spurious Masons working under a forged charter” at the end of section XV probably denotes the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, so called because it originated in France, claimed an authorisation from a Prussian prince, and had its greatest initial success in the Southern U.S.A. AASR, despite being founded on a questionable warrant, is the most numerous and well established Masonic “high grade” system, and since Masonic “regularity” is largely a matter of mutual recognition it was rather workings like Memphis, Misraim, and Cerneau, with which Crowley was affiliated through his contact with the English Masonic enthusiast John Yarker, which were regarded as “spurious” by most Masonic writers.
(c) Ordo Templi Orientis. Key-entry, &c., by Frater T.S. for NIWG
/ Celephaïs Press. This e-text last revised 26.06.2004.
T.S.
1 In recent years, some schools, notably Tonbridge, have adopted ritualistic marriage between boys, the passive partner being generally known (and respected) as a wife, whose normal social duties he is expected to fulfil. [Note added by AC in his copy of Equinox I (9).]
2 Of course there has been a school of devilish ananders that has held the act in itself to be “wicked.” Of these blasphemers of Nature let no further word be said,
3 [The design is a pattern of black and white squares. — T.S.]
4 Anhalonium Lewinnii. The
physiologically standardised preparation (Parke, Davies and Co) of
Cannabis Indica is also excellent if the admin-istration be in
expert hands.
[Note added by AC in his copy of Equinox I (9). Anhalonium Lewinnii
was the then botanical name for Lophophora williamsi, the peyote
cactus. Around the time Energized Enthusiasm was written, Crowley
conducted a number of experiments on himself and various volunteers
with this drug, intending to write up and publish the results as
Liber CMXXXIV, The Cactus in Equinox volume III. The writeup was
never finished and the notes were destroyed by H.M. Customs as part
of a batch of seized Crowley material.
Mescaline is hard to get hold of nowadays: psilocybin or lysergide
in carefully regulated doses may be an acceptable substitute,
although they still suffer the disadvantage of being illegal in most
‘civilised’ countries. — T.S.]
This page last updated: 03/01/2018