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no parts, no person; it is before "I am." Few can behold it, yet it is always there. For it there is no "here" nor "there,"
no "then" nor "now;" all parts of speech are abolished, save the noun; and this noun is not found either in {106} human
speech or in Divine. It is the Lost Word, the dying music of whose sevenfold echo is I A O and A U M. Without this
Light the Magician could not work at all; yet few indeed are the Magicians that have know of it, and far fewer They
that have beheld its brilliance!
The Temple and all that is in it must be destroyed again and again before it is worthy to receive that Light. Hence it
so often seems that the only advice that any master can give to any pupil is to destroy the Temple.
"Whatever you have" and "whatever you are" are veils before that Light.
Yet in so great ~a matter all advice is vain. There is no master so great that he can see clearly the whole character of
any pupil. What helped him in the past may hinder another in the future.
Yet since the Master is pledged to serve, he may take up that service on these simple lines. Since all thoughts are
veils of this Light, he may advise the destruction of all thoughts, and to that end teach those practices which are clearly
conductive to such destruction.
These practices have now fortunately been set down in clear language by order of the A.'.A.'..
In these instructions the relativity and limitation of each practice is clearly taught, and all dogmatic interpretations are
carefully avoided. Each practice is in itself a demon which must be destroyed; but to be destroyed it must first be
evoked.
Shame upon that Master who shirks any one of these practices, however distasteful or useless it may be to him! For
in the detailed knowledge of it, which experience alone can give him, may lie his opportunity for crucial assistance to a
pupil. However dull the drudgery, it should be undergone. If it were possible to regret anything in life, which is
fortunately not the case, it would be the hours wasted in fruitful practices which might have been more profitably
employed on sterile ones: for NEMO
beginner. See Liber CDXVIII, Aethyr XIII.>> in tending his garden seeketh not to single out the flower that shall be
NEMO after him. And we are not told that NEMO might have used other things than those which he actually does use;
it seems possible that if he had not the acid or the knife, or the fire, or the oil, he might miss tending just that one flower
which was to be NEMO after him!
{107}
CHAPTER XI
THE CROWN
THE Crown of the Magician represents the Attainment of his Work. It is a band of pure gold, on the front of which
stand three pentagrams, and on the back a hexagram. The central pentagram contains a diamond or a great opal; the
other three symbols contain the Tau. Around this Crown is twined the golden Ureaus serpent, with erect head and
expanded hood. Under the Crown is a crimson cap of maintenance, which falls to the shoulders.
Instead of this, the Ateph Crown of Thoth is sometimes worn; for Thoth is the God of Truth, of Wisdom, and the
Teacher of Magick. The Ateph Crown has two ram's horns, showing energy, dominion, the force that breaks down
obstacles, the sign of the spring. Between these horns is the disk of the sun; from this springs a Lotus upheld by the
twin plumes of truth, and three other sun-disks are upheld, one by the cup of the lotus, the others beneath the curving
feathers.
There is still another Crown, the Crown of Amoun, the concealed one, from whom the Hebrews borrowed their holy
word "Amen." This Crown consists simply of the plumes of truth. But into the symbolism of these it is not necessary
to go, for all this and more is in the Crown first described.
The crimson cap implies concealment, and is also symbolical of the flood of glory that pours upon the Magician from
above. It is of velvet for the softness of that divine kiss, and crimson for that it is the very blood of God which is its
life. The band of gold is the eternal circle of perfection. The three pentagrams symbolize the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit, while the hexagram represents the Magician himself. Ordinarily, pentagrams represent the microcosm,
hexagrams the macrocosm; but here the reverse is the case, because in this Crown of Perfection, that which is below
has become that which is above, and that which is above had become that which is below. If a diamond be worn, it is
for the Light which is before all manifestations in form; if an opal, it is to commemorate that sublime plan of the All, to
fold and unfold in eternal rapture, to manifest as the Many that the Many may become the One Unmanifest. But this
matter is too great for an elementary treatise on Magick.
The Serpent which is coiled about the Crown means many things, or, rather, one thing in many ways. It is the symbol
of royalty and of initiation, for the Magician is anointed King and Priest. {108}
It also represents Hadit, of which one can here only quote these words: "I am the secret serpent coiled about to spring;
in my coiling there is joy. If I lift up my head, I and my Nuit are one; if I droop down mine head and shoot forth
venom, there is rapture of the earth, and I and the earth are one."
The serpent is also the Kundalini serpent, the Magical force itself, the manifesting side of the Godhead of the
Magician, whose unmanifested side is peace and silence, of which there is no symbol.
In the Hindu system the Great Work is represented by saying that this serpent, which is normally coiled at the base of
the spine, rises with her hood over the head of the Yogi, there to unite with the Lord of all.
The serpent is also he who poisons. It is that force which destroys the manifested Universe. This is also the emerald
snake which encircles the Universe. This matter must be studied in Liber LXV, where this is discussed incomparably.
In the hood of this serpent are the six jewels, three on each side, Ruby, Emerald, and Sapphire, the three holy elements
made perfect, on both sides in equilibrium.
{109)
CHAPTER XII
THE ROBE
THE Robe of the Magician may be varied according to his grade and the nature of his working.
There are two principal Robes, the white and the black; of these the black is more important than the white, for the
white has no hood. These Robes may be varied by the addition of various symbols, but in any case the shape of the
Robe is a Tau.
The general symbolism which we have adopted leads us, however, to prefer the description of a Robe which few dare
wear. This Robe is of a rich silk of deep pure blue, the blue of the night sky: it is embroidered with golden stars, and
with roses and lilies. Around the hem, its tail in its mouth, is the great serpent, while upon the front from neck to hem
falls the Arrow described in the Vision of the Fifth Aethyr. This Robe is lined with purple silk on which is
embroidered a green serpent coiled from neck to hem. The symbolism of this Robe treats of high mysteries which must
be studied in Liber CCXX and Liber CDXVIII; but having thus dealt with special Robes, let us consider the use of the
Robe in general.
The Robe is that which conceals, and which protects the Magician from the elements; it is the silence and secrecy
with which he works, the hiding of himself in the occult life of Magick and Meditation. This is the "going away into
the wilderness" which we find in the lives of all men of the highest types of greatness. And it is also the withdrawing
of one's self from life as such.
In another sense it is the "Aura" of the Magician, that invisible egg or sheath which surrounds him. This "Aura" must
be shining, elastic, impenetrable, even by the light, that is, by any partial light that comes from one side.
The only light of the Magician is from the Lamp which hangs above his head, as he stands in the centre of the Circle,
and the Robe, being open at the neck, opposes no obstacles to the passage of this light. And being open, and very wide [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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