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The Abyss
Liber XI
[Da’ath]
Introduction
1. The Ordeal:
An Holy Thelemic Overview
2.
The Ordeal of Ida Pendragon
3.
The Ordeal of an Majestic Spook
4.
The Ordeal via Enochian Magick
5.
An Analysis by a Master of the
Temple
Introduction
"SOMA is the moon astronomically;
but in mystical phraseology, it is also the name of the sacred
beverage drunk by the Brahmins and the Initiates during their
mysteries and sacrificial rites. The ’soma’ plant is the asclepias acida, which yields a juice from which that mystic
beverage, the Soma drink, is made. Alone the descendants of the
Rishis, the Agnihotri (the fire priests) of the great mysteries
knew all it’s powers. But the real property of the true Soma
[’The Elixir of Life’] was (and is) to make a new man of the
initiate, after he is reborn...
"The partaker of Soma finds himself both linked to his external
body, and yet away from it in his spiritual form. The latter,
freed from the former, soars for the time being in the ethereal
higher regions, becoming virtually ’as one of the gods,’ and yet
plainly preserving in his physical brain the memory of what he
sees and learns. Plainly speaking, Soma is the fruit of the Tree
of Knowledge forbidden by the jealous Elohim to Adam and Eve or
Yah-Ve, ’lest man should become as one of us.’"
-H.P. Blavatsky
The Secret Doctrine, Vol. II: Anthropogenesis
(p. 499) Theosophical University Press
Having recently passed by a Thelemic
archive or twain on one of our observational strolls, we were quite
taken by numerous references to an apparently transcendental and
transformitive experience which appears to be called "The Crossing
of the Abyss."
Although we are in no wise permitted to comment specifically on the
process, nevertheless we have captured a brief, albeit disjointed,
snapshot, funneled it through common UFOlogical perceptions and
presented it here. Not as a studied art or science but merely as the
briefest and shallowest of descriptions for your consideration.
It is no big secret that the subject of "aliens" holds an High
Degree° of interest for the Holy Blue Brethren and we have been
quite intrigued on many occasions to note certain crossover points
where the very diverse socio-cultural ideologies and ontologies of
our species appear to overlap somewhat.
And indeed, what has remained veiled for millennia.
In regards to the strange process noted above, it was not long after
reading certain Thelemic remarks on this subject that we recalled a
portion of Strieber’s book "Majestic" from a few years back which
appears remarkably similar in many respects.
Hence the title, Whitley and the Abyss.
It has been often rumored that Mr. Strieber has enjoyed certain Wiccan affiliations in the past so bearing this in mind, one wonders
if these formerly inculcated belief systems may have filtered their
way into the tapestry of his current "space alien" mythology or if
certain occult groups have long been privy to a view of what A.F.
Col. Donald E. Ware (ret.) has succinctly termed the "larger
reality."
This series is in four parts.
Part one here contains a
snippet from the alt.magick FAQ entitled "A Glimpse of the
Structure and System of the Great White Brotherhood" which
pertains to the process noted above.
Part two is a portion of a [metaphorical/allegorical?]
dramatic story which appeared in Crowley’s
Equinox -- the
"official organ of the A:.A:." -- in which a young woman at the
turn of the century is guided on the abyssmal journey by a
fellow initiate (with apparently hidden agendas) and provides an
interesting yet deeply veiled account for those adept at reading
between the lines.
Part three is the excerpt from Strieber’s novel in which
a young intelligence officer (also a member of a secret "occultic
[intell] society" which maintains it’s own "initiation
ceremonies," has it’s own hierarchical "need to know"
classifications and structures and enforces it’s own version of
"sacred oaths") has an encounter with some "aliens" and is
transported via some strange elixir to his own disturbing yet
ostensibly enlightening "crossing of the abyss."
Part four is an Enochian flavoured perception of the same
phenomena.
See if you note any similarities between
the core substances of each expression. Then see if you can
determine why this might be.
-Frater Caeruleus
Go Back
The Abyss
Part I
A Glimpse of the Structure and System
of the Great White Brotherhood
Excerpts from Alt.Magick FAQ #7: "A Glimpse of the Structure and
System of the Great White Brotherhood."
"The Order of the S. S." (Silver Star, Argon Astron,
A.'.A.'.) is
composed of those who have crossed the Abyss; the implications of
this expression may be studied in Liber 418, the 14th, 13th, 12th,
11th, 10th, and 9th Aethyrs in particular. All members of the Order
are in full possession of the Formulae of Attainment, both mystical
or inwardly-directed and Magical or outwardly- directed.
[...]
Every active Member of the Order has destroyed all that He is and
all that he has on crossing the Abyss; but a star is cast forth in
the Heavens to enlighten the Earth, so that he may possess a vehicle
wherein he may communicate with mankind. The quality and position of
this star, and its functions, are determined by the nature of the
incarnations transcended by him.
To attain the grade of Magus
he must accomplish Three Tasks:
-
the
renunciation of His enjoyment of the Infinite so that he may
formulate Himself as the Finite
-
the acquisition of the practical
secrets alike of initiating and governing His proposed new Universe
-
the identification of himself with the impersonal idea of Love
Any neophyte of the Order (or, as some say, any person soever)
possesses the right to claim the Grade of Master of the Temple by
taking the Oath of the Grade. It is hardly necessary to observe that
to do so is the most sublime and awful responsibility which it is
possible to assume, and an unworthy person who does so incurs the
most terrific penalties by his presumption.
[...]
"The Order of the R. C." The Grade of the
Babe of the Abyss is not a
Grade in the proper sense, being rather a passage between the two
Orders. Its characteristics are wholly negative, as it is attained
by the resolve of the Adeptus Exemptus to surrender all that he has
and is for ever. It is an annihilation of all the bonds that compose
the self or constitute the Cosmos, a resolution of all complexities
into their elements, and these thereby cease to manifest, since
things are only knowable in respect of their relation to, and
reaction on, other things.
[...]
To attain the Grade of
Magister Templi, he must perform two tasks;
the emancipation from thought by putting each idea against its
opposite, and refusing to prefer either; and the consecration of
himself as a pure vehicle for the influence of the order to which he
aspires.
He must then decide upon the critical adventure of our Order; the
absolute abandonment of himself and his attainments. He cannot remain
indefinitely an Exempt Adept; he is pushed onward by the
irresistible momentum that he has generated.
Should he fail, by will or weakness, to make his self-annihilation
absolute, he is none the less thrust forth into the Abyss; but
instead of being received and reconstructed in the Third Order, as a
Babe in the womb of our Lady BABALON, under the Night of Pan, to
grow up to be Himself wholly and truly as He was not previously, he
remains in the Abyss, secreting his elements round his Ego as if
isolated from the Universe, and becomes what is called a "Black
Brother." Such a being is gradually disintegrated from lack of
nourishment and the slow but certain action of the attraction of the
rest of the Universe, despite efforts to insulate and protect
himself, and to aggrandize himself by predatory practices. He may
indeed prosper for a while, but in the end he must perish,
especially when with a new Aeon a new word is proclaimed which he
cannot and will not hear, so that he is handicapped by trying to use
an obsolete method of Magick, like a man with a boomerang in a
battle where every one else has a rifle.
[...]
...he must employ to this end the formula called "The Beast
conjoined with the Woman" which establishes a new incarnation of
deity; as in the legends of Leda, Semele, Miriam, Pasiphae, and
others.
[...]
From the Abyss comes No Man forth, but a Star startles the Earth,
and our Order rejoices above that Abyss that the Beast hath begotten
one more Babe in the Womb of Our Lady, His concubine, the Scarlet
Woman, BABALON.
There is not need to instruct a Babe thus born, for in the Abyss it
was purified of every poison of personality; its ascent to the
highest is assured, in its season, and it hath no need of seasons
for it is conscious that all conditions are no more than forms of
its fancy.
Go Back
The Abyss
Part II
The Ordeal of Ida Pendragon
Excerpt from "THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGON," which appeared in The
Equinox, An. VII Vol I No. VI
THE GREY HOUR
"TO resume," observed Rolles as he removed the tea-tray, "since you
have done no prescribed practices (wicked little sister!) you cannot
banish the body by bidding it keep silence. So it must be banished
by exhaustion, and the spirit awakened by a sevenfold dose of the
Elixir."
"Have you the Elixir?" she asked, rather awed.
"It is entrusted to me," he answered simply. "To this laudable end I
have appointed a sufficiency of Bisque Kadosh at the Cafe Riche,
followed by Homard Cardinal and Truffes au champagne. With a savoury
of my own invention. The truffes au champagne of the Cafe Riche are
more to be desired than all the hashish dreams of all the wicked,
and than all the divine dreams of all the good. We shall walk there,
and drive back. This incense shall be kindled, and this lamp left
burning."
He took a strange object from a locked cabinet. It had flowered
chased pipes of gold, copper and platinum, coiling about an egg of
crystal. The three snakes met just above the egg, as if to bite or
to kiss. Rolles filled the egg with a pale blue liquid from a
Venetian flask, then pressed the heads of the serpents just a little
closer together. Instantly a coruscating flame leapt between them,
minute, dazzling, radiant. It continued to burn with a low hissing
noise rarely interrupted by a dry crackle.
"It is well," said Rolles, "let us depart."
Ida Pendragon had not said a word. She put on her hat and followed
to the door as fatalistically as the condemned man walks to the
gallows. She had passed through anticipation; she was content to
await what might be.
At the door she whispered, hushed in awe of the real silence of the
room with its monotonous hiss, in his ear. "You have the Lamp. I
almost begin to wonder if you have not the Ring!"
"’This is a secret sign,’" he quoted, "’and thou shalt not disclose
it unto the profane.’ Tonight yours be the ring -- the Eternal Ring,
the Serpent to twine about my heart."
"Ah! could I crush it!"
He closed the door. Like a priest celebrating his first high mass he
led her through Paris. Neither spoke. Only as they mounted the steps
of the Cafe he took her arm and said, sharply and sternly:
"Attention! From this moment I am Edgar Rolles, and you are Ida
Pendragon. No more: not a thought of our real relation. Man and
woman, if you will; beasts in the jungle, if you will; flowers by
the wayside, if you will; but nothing more. Else you will not only
fail in the ordeal, but you will be swept aside out of the Path. You
were in greater danger than you knew this afternoon; you will yet
pay the price."
"I understand," she said. "You devil! I love you." "And I love every
inch of your white body!"
They ran laughing arm in arm through the swing doors.
[...]
Edgar Rolles sat curled up Hindu fashion on his bed. The sacred lamp
still hissed. At his side lay Ida, her arms stretched out cruciform.
She hardly breathed; there was no colour in her face. One would have
said the corpse of a martyred virgin. On her white body its own
purity hovered like a veil.
Edgar Roles watched the lamp, erect, attentive. It went out. Hardly
a hint of grey filtered through the blackness. In his hands he held
two threads. "One is black, and one is white, he mused, and only God
knows which is which. So only God knows what is sin. In our darkness
we who presume to declare it are liars -- charlatans, groping quacks
at the best. Will the sun never dawn? For us on whom the lightning
of ecstasy hath flashed for a moment -- ’much may be seen by its
light’ -- the light of the tempest.
But the Light of the Silver
Star? Oh, my Brothers (he began to speak aloud) give me wisdom as
you have given me understanding! Knowledge and grace and power?
These are nothing and less than nothing. Is not this a precious
think that you have given into my charge? Am not I too young among
you to bear so wonderful a burden? It is the first time that I have
dared so far. The Abyss! The Razor-Edge! Frail bridge and sharp! Yet
is it not a ray of the Evening Star, a ray of Venus, of the Love
Supernal! ..."
Can I tell black from white? It seems I can -- and then the
certainty flickers, and I doubt. I doubt. I am always doubting.
Perhaps a wise man grows angry, and declares his will. ’It shall be
what o’cock I say it is,’ or ...see ! I lay the threads on her white
breast. No doubt remains."
Then clear and loud: "Ave Soror!"
The girl, as it seemed mechanically, murmured the words "Rosae
Rubeae."
"Et Aureae Crucis," he rejoined.
Then together, very slowly and distinctly: "Benedictus sit Dominus
Deus Noster qui nobis dedit signum."
It seemed hardly possible that her voice joined his. The lips hardly
moved; it was as if an interior voice spoke in her heart. Yet the
room was suddenly filled with a pale green light -- or was it rosy?
-- or was it golden? -- or was it like the moon? That was the
strange thing about it. To every name one put to it an inward voice
answered: No, not that; like that, but not quite that. Luminous,
spectral, cloudy, shimmering -- it was all these, and something
more.
He placed his hand upon the girl’s forehead.
"Are you perfectly awake?"
"I am awake, frater."
"Can you give me the sign of your grade?"
"I must not move. But I am poised for diving, frater."
"The word?"
Haltingly came the answer: "Ar--ar--it--a."
"One is His beginning; one is His individuality; His permutation
one. Do not forget it, little sister."
"Are you ready?"
"I am ready. Farewell -- farewell for ever!"
"Farewell."
He took his signet-ring, and pressed a spring. The bezel opened and
disclosed a small jewelled wheel, divided into many compartments. He
pressed a second spring. The wheel began to revolve, and in the
silence sang a tiny tune. It was a faint tinkle, like a distant
cow-bell, or like a chime heard far off, heard from the snow. There
was an icy quality in the note.
"Where are you?"
"I -- I --" she broke off.
His eyes lit with joy.
"I am in the sand; I am buried to the waist in the sand. I see
nothing but sand."
His face fell again.
"What is sand?" he asked.
"Oh -- just sand, you know. Leagues and leagues of sand; like a
great bowl of sand."
"But what is sand?"
"Sand -- oh! sand is God, I suppose." There was a patience and
weariness in her voice, as of one who has suffered long and is at
rest, or convalescent.
"And who are you?"
She did not answer the question. "Now I see sky," she said. "Sky is
God, too, I think."
"Then do you see God?"
"Oh no! I think I am God, somehow. It is all like it was before,
long ago. I was once a spider in the sand. God is a spider; the
Universe is flies. I am a fly, too. ...And now the desert is full of
flies."
Rolles bit his lip; his face was drawn with pain. At that moment he
looked an old man.
"Black flies," she went on. "Horrible white maggots. And now there
are corpses. The maggots play about their mouths and eyes. There are
three corpses that were God when they were alive. I killed Him. That
was when I was a camel in the sand. Now there are only my bones."
"It may be only a veil," he muttered, not wishing her to hear. But
she heard.
"It is a veil," she said. "But is there anything behind veils?"
"Look!"
"Only the sand."
"Tear it down!"
"There might be Nothing behind."
"There is Nothing behind. It is through that that you must pass."
"This veil is God. I am a holy nun in the trance called Rampurana. I
am canonized. My name is on every banner. My face is worshipped by
every nation. I am a pure virgin; all the others are soiled. Thought
is worse than deed. All my thoughts are holy. I think. I think. I
think. By the power of my thought I created the Word; and by the
Word came the Worlds. I am the creator. I will write my law upon
tablets of jade and onyx."
Rolles bowed his head in silence.
"I am thought itself," she went on quietly. "And all thought is I. I
am knowledge. All knowledge is in three. Three hundred and
thirty-three. I am half the Master. I have cut him in two."
The adept shuddered.
"That was when I was an axe. I will not be an arrow. I will be an
axe. ..." She gave a giggle.
"I am gleeful by reason of hate."
There was a pause.
"And I am gleeful because I am reason. ..."
"All reason ends in two. I have cut the Master in two."
"Can she pass through?" wondered Edgar. "Is it a fault to be
identified so well with that which she beholds?"
"There are devils," she cried. "Black, naked screaming devils. They
touch, and at a touch each oozes back to his slime. This slime is
Chaos."
"Ararita!" he breathed the word upon her brow.
"Don’t touch me! don’t touch me!" she screamed. "I am holy! I am
God! I am I!" Her face was black and distorted with sudden passion.
"It’s quite different to my own experience in many ways," thought
the watcher. "Yet -- is it not the essence of all ordeal, all
initiation, that it should be unexpected? Otherwise, the candidate
would have passed through the gate before he approached it. Which is
absurd."
The last word must have been audible.
"Absurd!" she cried. "Indeed, it is not absurd. It is all rational.
It is you who are absurd."
"Do you understand what you are saying?"
"No! No! I hate all who understand. I will bite them. I will bite
their waists." Dropping her voice suddenly: "That was when I was a
mouse-trap."
"Dear God! this is like delirium."
"Oh! go on about God. I don’t mind God. I could tell you wonderful
things about what I have done to God. I was a Nonconformist preacher
once: I had secret sins. They were mine! Mine! How proud I was of
them! Every Sunday I used to preach against the sin that I had done
most in the week. There are many butterflies in the desert; ever so
many more than one would think. This proves that God is good. And
then, you see, there are beetles. Beetles and beetles. And
scorpions. Dear little amber beasts. There! one has stung me. It is
the sacrament of hate. I will sleep in a bed of scorpions and rose-
leaves. Scorpions are better than thorns. Why do I wander about
naked? And why do I thirst? And this torment of cold? It ought to be
hot in the desert. And it isn’t. Now that proves -- oh yes, my cat!
you shall have milk. I will strike a rock for you. Milk and honey."
She started up suddenly, and put her hands to her face, then threw
them round his neck.
"Edgar, darling!" she cried, "your pussy has had such a dreadful
dream. Come and love his girl!"
He dared not tell her that she had tried and failed, that she had
come come {sic} back as she set out. He flung his will into that act
of mercy; his kisses ravished her into delight.
It was late morning when they woke, faint with rapture, fresh kisses
blossoming on their young lips, as the sun himself lit their
awakening with his love.
Only then came memory, and solemnity, and sorrow.
[...]
So, with a thousand tear and kisses, they parted. She would not come
to see him off; her self-command was weakened alike by her new love
and by the terrible ordeal that she had undergone. Her mind
remembered nothing of it -- such is the merciful order of things;
but her soul, beaten with rods, was sore.
Go Back
The Abyss
Part III
An Majestic Experience
Following is an excerpt from Strieber’s "novel"
Majestic wherein an
alleged military/intelligence operative -- dying of lung cancer and
seeking to appease his battered conscience -- describes events which
took place much earlier in his life; events brought on by his
contact with "alien visitors."
The Alien Elixir
How incredibly alien they were. Had I understood then who they were,
I wonder if I would have acted differently. All of my life I have
wished I knew what they thought of me. It must have been an
incredibly funny, poignant experience -- if they had the full range
of human feeling available to them in those strange bodies.
"Open your mouth," the man said.
"I will not."
"Goddammit, I knew it. Look, I gotta..." He threw himself at me. He
was huge and as hard as stone. I was too spent to resist him, even
for a second. With one arm around my chest he held me from behind.
With his free hand he forced open my jaws.
I tried to clench them but his fingers were powerful. The woman had
a graceful little bottle from which she withdrew a curved dropper.
My jaws were open, I was helpless. She put three drops of ice-cold
liquid on the tip of my tongue. When they let me go I smacked and
coughed. I spat.
"You can spit," the man said. "It doesn’t matter."
"What have you done to me?"
"You needed that. You’re going on a trip."
"I want to go home."
They pushed me into one of the seats. I quelled a wave of nausea,
but it was followed by another, stronger one. The man reached around
behind my seat and came out with an airsickness bag from the pocket.
TRANSCONTINENTAL AIR TRANSPORT was printed on it in red letters. I
used it.
The air had changed. Far from being cold, it was now thick and hot.
It was getting hard to breathe. Whatever was happening to me, my
body was being taken to the extremes of endurance. In those days we
knew nothing of hallucinogenic drugs.
Without a sound the walls of the room became clear.
At first I did not understand what I was seeing. A huge shining
strip of light curved off into the sky. Beneath it there shone the
amazingly complex surface of a gigantic sphere colored in a thousand
shades of tan and green and blue.
Then I saw that it was all surrounded by reefs and oceans of stars,
stars in endless numbers, stars beyond belief in a billion colors
winking, as if God’s own treasury had been spilled.
We appeared to be in the rings of Saturn. How far from earth would
that be? I couldn’t even begin to remember. However, I was
completely convinced that we had come an awfully long distance in a
very short time.
In the middle of the clear wall was a round doorway. It did not
appear to open into the view around us at all, but revealed broad
plains beneath the light of a strange, brown sky. It looked like a
patch pasted on the wall of stars.
I had no intention of going through that door.
The Chronicle of Wilfred Stone
The next second I was standing in a desert. It was strewn with sharp
black boulders that shone dully in the weak light. A forlorn breeze
fluttered my paper garment.
I was aware of the fact that Saturn was a ball of gas, so I did not
imagine myself to be there. I didn’t know where I was. They had
removed me from reality. A few minutes before I had been struggling
in the depths of a cave, now I was on a desert worse than the
Sahara.
I have wondered at those events, trying to determine if they were
physically real or if they happened in some other way.
I was here, and the grit underfoot was real and the air was
crackling dry and the sky was brown.
I staggered a few steps, hitting my naked foot against one of the
stones. I sat down, rubbing my ankle. I looked around.
In a way that is almost impossible to describe, this place was
unfamiliar. Even the details were wrong. Perhaps especially the
details. The shape and color of the stones, the quality of the sand,
all of it was wrong. Even the air against my skin felt different.
I wasn’t really thinking anymore. I was just here, my eyes looking
out into the open.
Which was, of course, the whole point. My humanity had dropped away.
I was still conscious, but I was an animal again.
And I was so lonely. I raised my head to the brown sky and keened.
My sound was the only noise in the place. It seemed to be coming at
once from far away and from deep within me, deeper than I had ever
been. I took a breath, did it again. My spirit rose with the sound,
for a moment to fill the empty air with the magic of being.
Then it died away and I was little again and it was getting dark.
I suspect that we made such sounds when we lived in the forest.
Grabbing a rock I stood up. I threw it a tremendous long distance.
It landed with an empty thud.
I raced across the plain, dodging and skipping with a grace I had
never before possessed.
When I came to a high point I stopped. Seeking for the scent of
water, I smelled the air.
A growl of frustration came from my throat. The sound startled me.
At first I thought there was some kind of animal behind me. Then I
thought, "No, that is how you’re supposed to sound."
I was me, me alone. No name, no education, no expectations. Just me.
The sky was pale and unmarked by clouds. Not far above the horizon
there was a powdery brilliance, which I presumed was the sun in deep
haze.
Next I scanned the horizon, looking carefully for some sign of life,
a swatch of green, perhaps, or the glitter of water. Then I looked
for smoke or just the outline of a building.
The place was completely empty and entirely silent.
Again I smelled the parched air. I was already quite thirsty; I
couldn’t live like this for long. The air was so dry that it was
leaching moisture from my body. My hands looked like paper, the skin
puckered and shriveled. I touched my face, feeling fissures that had
never been there before. And my nose was cracked inside.
Where would I go, naked except for a flimsy piece of paper? Graceful
or not, my feet were thoroughly banged up from the mad run. I don’t
think there was a single rock that wasn’t sharp.
For the most part the desert seemed absolutely flat, but off to my
right the land rose. I could not judge distances. The views, though,
seemed much longer than they had any right to be.
I walked in the direction of the rising land. At least this would
keep the sun behind me. What had appeared to be the gentlest of
rises soon became quite steep. I wasn’t going to be able to keep
this up forever. My chest and head ached, my legs felt like lead, my
feet were on fire.
Very suddenly I started to have trouble seeing. At first I didn’t
understand why, because I did not realize how fast night came. By
the time I realized what was wrong the sun was already on the
horizon.
It seemed as if the air literally absorbed light. The instant the
disk of the sun disappeared it was absolutely dark. There were only
one or two bright stars visible through the dusty haze.
God, this place was ugly.
I sat down. There was no point in walking farther without light. The
dark was like ink, like something you could feel.
I wished they’d at least left me my lighter.
Then I was crying bitterly. The tears came without warning. I had
been left here to die. It was so damn unfair and I was so far from
home.
Later I heard something, or thought I did. Now that it was dark I
didn’t want this. I didn’t want to hear anything that I couldn’t
see.
The sound was low and slow and high in the air. It was as if some
tremendous thing was floating through the sky above me, breathing.
The breathing got louder and louder. I felt like it was right above
me, huge. I cringed, waiting for it to land on me.
Instead it went away. I let out my breath.
No sooner had I begun to relax than there was a tremendous rattling
noise in the distance.
It got closer and closer and lower and lower and I could hear the
breathing again, fast and excited. There was urgency in it, like a
starving prisoner inhaling the aroma of the jailer’s soup.
A new sound started up, sharp scraping. It was very regular, as if
somebody was slashing knives together.
Something whizzed through the air just above me, so close that my
hair was touched with a breeze.
Involuntarily I shrank away-and saw a red glow out of the corner of
my eye. I looked. Redness spread along the horizon on my left.
A moment later a huge red star popped up and the place was bathed in
dim, bloody light.
There seemed to be a forest of thin trees all around me. It took me
time to understand that I was looking at tall, black legs, many of
them.
It took every ounce of my composure not to scream. I was under what
appeared to be a gigantic insect of some kind, perhaps a spider. The
rattling noise started again. I could see sharp mouth parts working.
Jumping, twisting, turning to avoid the legs I made a dash to get
away from the thing.
It rose up into the air, making a gigantic leap. I had to scramble
to avoid it landing right on top of me. Again I ran. This time I
threw stones at it.
It leaped.
I evaded, but barely. I scrambled up the rise on the theory that
those jumps would be harder uphill. They weren’t. It sailed high
into the red air and came down on top of me.
Legs clutched, mandibles scraped -- and I was caught. I grabbed a
rock and hammered against one of the limbs. For all the good it did
I might as well have been trying to break steel pipe.
I fought against its quick, clever legs. Finally I went wild. I hit,
kicked, bit. The jaws were slashing and I could see a bright green
tongue darting in and out of its mouth. I was brought closer and
closer to being sliced to pieces.
I could not possibly taste good to the thing. It was sure to tear me
to pieces and spit me out. I was furious at dying so pointlessly.
Then the legs pressed me against the wide open mouth and I began to
die.
As I sank away I saw around me a starry night of home. I was back at
our old house. We were playing on the porch, my sister and I. I saw
her beside me, attending to her beloved doll Ricardo. That word -- I
hadn’t thought of it since I was tiny. The moment was bathed in a
light that seemed to contain some essential emotion of loss and
urgency.
There was between me and the thing that was devouring me a kinship
of tremendous power. It pushed my fear aside and I lay like a
raptured lover in the forest of legs.
If this was death, from where did love emerge?
I was dropped on the ground from a distance of a few feet-put down
gently. For an instant I saw the complex face of the thing that had
held me. It looked like nothing so much as a tremendous mantis. But
those eyes -- huge, reflecting the red air -- were not blank. I was
shocked. Somebody was looking at me. Joy rang out. There was peace,
wisdom and then a cock of the head: the irony of our situation.
Soundless in the charged air, laughter.
I was left collapsed on the ground, drained now not only of my
culture and my name but also of my physical strength.
Bit by bit I was being demolished, reduced to the simplest nub of
self.
I lay staring at the sky. Did I sleep? I don’t know, but when I
finally felt like getting to my feet I was stiff and ached in every
joint.
Keeping the red sun on my right I forced myself up the rise. As I
walked I understood that I had been brought a long distance. Before
me there stood the most tremendous cliff I’d ever seen. It seemed to
go up for thousands and thousands of feet.
On its highest ridge there was a very distinct blue glow. The glow
was pulsating.
Life.
So the attack had not been an attack at all. Somebody had simply
been helping me.
The cliff was not sheer. There were plenty of footholds, and I had
already reached a dizzying height when the red sun sank below the
horizon.
Again darkness came abruptly. I was left hugging the wall in front
of me, afraid to go another inch.
I don’t think it was dark for more than ten minutes. When the pale
sun rose again I resumed my climb.
There were moments of dizziness when I would have to stop. I wasn’t
in shape for a climb like this. My throat felt as if it had been
packed with powdered glass. My head pounded.
Not only was I thirsty, I was also becoming hungry. I kept
remembering that beef stew I’d had for lunch. Once I even sucked a
bit of it from between two teeth.
When that happened I hugged the rock and cried like a baby. The
loneliness came again, and stopped me for a long time.
The higher I went the more difficult the climb became. Worse, the
soil up here was friable and there wasn’t a single stable handhold.
I had to dig down then haul myself up as the dirt collapsed around
me.
Above me the blue glow was massive. I tried to call out but it was
no good. I hadn’t a trace of a voice.
At this height the cliff was more like a sand dune. To make headway
I had to lie against it and squirm. I was so frustrated that I would
have been in tears, but I had no tears.
It took me some time to realize that I’d made it.
Before me was a sparse but huge park. I dragged myself onto the
surface, which I found to consist of tightly matted grass, bright
green. I inhaled it, chewed at it trying to get some moisture. It
was very dry.
I pulled myself to my feet. Off to my left there was a stand of
tall, narrow trees. They were really huge, a hundred and more feet
high by my estimation.
Directly ahead I saw a truly welcome vision, a cluster of buildings.
They were obviously adobe. It looked very much like a Hopi town. I
started stumbling forward.
A smell came to me on the air-or rather, a sensation. This was
dampness. It loosened my drum-tight skin. It filled my nose with
life, made my lungs open.
As best I could I ran.
Then I saw it. A fountain. It was made of black, shiny stone, round,
with water playing out of a nozzle in the center.
I plunged my head in and opened my mouth. The water was glorious,
cold and pure and perfect. I could feel my skin drinking, my mouth,
sucking and drinking. Never had I experienced such raw pleasure. It
was ecstatic, delicious, almost sexual in its intensity.
Finally I raised my head. Beyond the fountain there was a small
garden.
In the garden stood a child. Her looks did not matter to me; what I
saw was the radiance within. I ran to her as would a youth to his
perfect love.
[the transcription stops as the author recollects the interview]
I finally felt what I should have felt from the beginning for
Wilfred Stone. My youth and arrogance had prevented me, though.
I looked at that old man in a completely new way. I reached toward
him. He looked down at my hand, and then at me. In his eyes was an
emotion I cannot name. It sent a jagged edge of fear through me, as
if I had scented death.
"Turn it off," he said. I put down the tape recorder. He flipped the
switch. He didn’t actually tell me to leave out the material that
follows, but that was the implication.
I do not feel that he was right, but out of respect for him -- yes,
respect -- I took notes on this part of his narrative of the other
world, rather than record it.
[the experience resumes]
The wise child walked quickly away, a chalky ghost in the gloom. She
was the size of a three-year-old but her movements were mature.
Will called out.
She stopped when she heard him. When she smiled he sensed what he
described as something almost vampiric about her. There was a sense
of tremendous, overwhelming power, the night in the child.
He felt himself in the presence of tremendous wisdom. This was what
it was like to be with somebody who had gone beyond the human.
His next words just popped out, as if formed from purest instinct.
"Help us," he said.
The response was immediate. The next second he was back in his
boyhood home in Westchester County.
The whole place was flooded with pure, sweet light. He could hardly
believe it. And this was no illusion. Will says that he was there.
What’s more, he remembers the event now from two different
perspectives -- that of himself as a little boy encountering a
strange, shadowy man in his room ...and also that of himself as the
man.
The old red fire engine was there, standing against the wall
opposite his crib.
He moved slowly around in his room. The wonder of it made everything
seem jewel-like and perfect.
Then he noticed movement in the crib. His own curly head, his blue
eyes-the Willy Stone of thirty and more years ago rose up and
climbed deftly out to the floor. Will could smell his baby
freshness, could hear him, see him.
"Oh God, God," he told me, "Nick, my heart just broke in two. I was
so little! And in that huge, shadowy, mysterious world, the courage
in the eyes..."
The wise children, the others, had brought him home to the best and
purest thing that he was.
He remembered a warm, huge hand that had come out of the dark ...
and suddenly the curtains blew and the moonlight came in and he saw
a huge, terrible man, a nightmare man bending over him.
He screamed, a high bullet of a sound.
Feet pounded from downstairs. Will the man saw his father’s balding
head shining in the moonlight as he came up the stairs. Behind him
his mother floated in her lace and silk.
He stepped into the shadows.
Will as child was terrified. "Daddy! Man! Man here!"
He saw his own father engulf him in himself and carry him like a
limp offering back to the crib.
Then the room fell away, growing smaller and smaller until it was a
dot of light in the air, and then was gone.
The vampire child was dancing slow turns around him. She stopped and
smiled a dangerous smile. And he felt nothing but love.
At the far end of the oasis there was a tall arch, and beyond it a
round, tumbledown building.
He wanted to go there, but she restrained him, pushing against his
belly as a clown child might against her clown father.
Leaving him for a moment she ran to a small table. She pointed. On
it there was a plain gray plate and three gray pancakes. Will
realized that he was ravenous. He remembers still the taste of that
food, the pure flavor of the buckwheat from which the cakes were
made, the sense of a freshness he had never tasted before.
There was also a wide bowl of water. The girl came and scooped it up
for him and he drank from her cupped hands.
Afterward she sang to him in a whispering voice, in a language he
did not know. He began to feel sleepy and lay down on his side.
Much later he was awakened by a soft hand stroking his head.
He jumped to his feet. All the weight of his years seemed to have
fallen away.
He walked, then, as his excitement rose; finally he ran to the
ancient building. Where the blue-gray stones were intact their
perfect fit reminded him of Inca work, but for the most part the
place was cracked and crumbling.
He went up the steps and into a wide, cool hall. It was made of
dark-blue stone worked with great intricacy. When he tried to follow
the labyrinth of these carvings his head began to pound. Finally he
had to stop looking at the walls, the ceiling, and keep his eyes on
the floor.
There was a circle of children sitting before him. It was all so
very familiar. Words came to him: beyond fear there is another life.
Was this the place the dead went?
Had he been killed? Was that what this meant?
He went to the center of the circle and waited, standing quite
still. He soon heard a drum beating out in the corridor. The sound
stirred him, infected him, made him start to move.
The children began to chant in repetitive notes, wonderful notes.
He spread his arms and started to turn. The room whirled and the
drum pulsed and chanting hypnotized him.
He remembered his own beginning.
He was moving swiftly and secretly across the sky of home. There
were little flecks of cloud. He went past them and down into the
spreading summer trees. He moved around a great, gnarled limb, his
heart full of love and delicious with the secrecy of his coming. His
movement was so stealthy that not even a grasshopper stirred from
her rasping as he passed by.
Then he saw a window. The shades were drawn but he passed through
them as if there was nothing there.
The room was dim and very quiet. A young woman lay on a bed, her
head turned to one side. She was as fresh and lovely as new light,
covered only by a thin gown. Brown curls spread over her brow. Her
belly was huge.
He loved her terribly, and could not resist going closer to her.
Then he began to drift downward. He could no longer float.
In an instant he was inside her womb, a glowing cavern. Her body was
roaring, the heart fluttering like a tent in the wind, her whole
self a bubbling, oozing bladder barely managing to contain its
liquids.
He swam into the fluid of her and drank her and smelled her
essential flower, and was filled with the taste and sense of her.
There began a dialogue between them, long speaking together of the
days they would spend as mother and son.
He would love her as a boy, but when she grew old he would abandon
her. His love for deception would replace his love for her and so
she would die alone, her breast weakly shuddering, on a cot in the
hallway of a public cancer ward.
He sat before me, his head bowed, tears streaming from his eyes. So
this was what he didn’t want recorded and why he never, ever
mentioned his mother. I wanted to help him, to offer him some word
of comfort but I could not. We are all betrayers, all of us.
To find true joy one must first accept true pain.
Once again he was back in his old bedroom, only not as a man. This
time he was a little boy again. He was dancing and dancing. It was a
moonlit night and there was danger in the air. Terrible things were
happening.
He saw waves of ships crossing the highest air. They were gray disks
and the streets below rang with screams.
But more people were singing than were screaming and chains lay
abandoned that had weighted their shoulders.
"The lamb will lie down with the lion." The secret meaning is that
the son will love the errant father, the lamb will welcome the
hungry nuzzling of the wolf-mother, the rat will perish of love as
the owl’s talons pierce his heart.
Beyond fear there is another world.
Go Back
The Abyss
Part IV
Enochian Temples:
Generating the "Abyss" Experience with the Temple
by Benjamin Rowe
1992
WARNING:
The technique described herein can be VERY DANGEROUS to the
emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being of the magician who
makes use of it. I am releasing it solely because full disclosure
was one of the requirements under which the Enochian Temple system
was originally given to me. The entities who provided the basic
information feel that people can not grow to spiritual adulthood
without being exposed to adult hazards. My experience of the results
prevents me from being quite so cold- blooded. The same goals can be
accomplished by more gradual means, as those entities have stated
themselves. The magician who chooses to use this technique must take
full personal responsibility for both the decision to do so, and for
any events resulting from its use.
Should a magician want use it despite this warning, he or she should
do so only after constructing a strong, fully charged Temple which
includes the altars of the sub-elements. And any invocations using
this technique should be immediately preceded by the erection of the
strongest wards the magician is capable of constructing.
The names of a Tablet’s Seniors can be formed into a table on their
own by placing their names one above the other, going clockwise from
the Senior of Jupiter. For the Earth Tablet, the table of the
Seniors would be:
|
A |
C |
Z |
I |
N |
O |
R |
|
L |
Z |
I |
N |
O |
P |
O |
|
A |
L |
H |
C |
T |
G |
A |
|
L |
I |
I |
A |
N |
S |
A |
|
A |
H |
M |
L |
I |
C |
V |
|
L |
A |
I |
D |
R |
O |
M |
Similar pseudo-tablets can be formed from the other elemental
tablets. Names of six letters are formed by reading down the
columns. These names already exist in the Temple, where they are
formed by drawing a circle clockwise from any square of the Senior
of Jupiter, connecting the corresponding squares in the other
Seniors’ names. In their natural place, they express the radiatory
effect of the Elemental King as his force passes out along the paths
provided by the Seniors. But the names can also be used in another
way.
First, hollow hexagons are formed, as in figure ( ), one-half unit
thick with outer faces one unit wide. Each letter of a name is
assigned to one of the wedge-like segments of this structure in
clockwise succession. Each name’s hexagon is placed immediately
below the corresponding arm in the wheel of the Seniors, about
two-thirds of the way from the center of the Temple to the end of
the arm, with the base side at the same level as the tops of the
pillars. The hexagon attributed to the Sun is in the center of the
upper Temple, with the Elemental King’s beam passing through the
hole.
In the chart as given above, the columns are attributed (from left
to right) to Venus, Sun, Saturn, Earth/Luna, Jupiter, Mercury, and
Mars. When used in invocations, the name should be vibrated
immediately after that of the King or corresponding Senior, and at
no other time. Also, the first enochian key should always precede
the invocation of the element when these names are used. When they
are visualized in the upper Temple, an appropriate telesmatic image
for the Senior (or the god-form of the related planet) should be
visualized standing upright above (not in) the hollow center. (1)
The magician himself should stand in the beam of the King while
invoking them, and attempt to identify himself with it to the
greatest extent possible.
As the Elemental King and each Senior is invoked with the
corresponding name from the table, the hexagon should be visualized
as projecting itself downwards into the lower temple, forming a
hollow crystal column. The force of the King or Senior is channeled
down through the column and then radiates outward through the faces.
(This is in contrast to the normal Temple formulation, where the
Seniors’ force spreads out to form a curtain around the lower
Temple.)
In the Enochian system, six of the planets are attributed to the
first six sephiroth of the Tree of Life. The seventh, Saturn, takes
in the last four sephiroth as a group. In the formulation here, the
Senior of Saturn takes Sol’s place in Tiphereth as the governor of
the elements, and the Elemental King abandons his solar attributes,
taking on his secondary attribution to the path of Shin, which
connects Tiphereth and Kether in Achad’s version of the Tree of
Life.
In the Tree of Life, the centralizing effect of Sol normally causes
the forces of the upper Tree to be focused in Tiphereth. But when
Sol’s force is repressed or removed, the balance of these sephiroth
moves to the empty area in the center of the upper Tree. The path of
Shin passes through this area, but it does not provide any focus for
the forces of the six sephiroth. (2) Each of the sephiroth becomes
focused in itself, and the attractive force of each draws equally on
the empty center area. That area experiences a uniform pull outwards
in all directions, resulting in the rending and dispersal of
anything placed there. A conscious being passing up the path of Shin
perceives this effect as the experience of the Abyss.
Normally, the Enochian Temple expresses the essential unity of the
Tablets with the whole Tree of Life as a balanced, integrated
structure. Using the technique presented here suppresses that
integrity and replaces it with a strong force towards dispersion.
The magician, identified with the Elemental King’s beam of light,
places himself to experience the full strength of that dispersion.
Depending on the degree of success, the magician may experience a
variety of perceptions. At the least intense level, he may
experience sensations of inexplicable "wrongness" and non-specific
paranoia, or a sense of jittery energy like an overdose of
methedrine. At a somewhat more intense level, he will experience a
sense of his soul being ripped into extremely small pieces, while
each piece is simultaneously being crushed to a point.
At full force, the experience then evolves into what can only be
called the perception of voidness; the negation, the removal of any
being or value from absolutely everything perceptible, both internal
and external. The intensity of this voidness can not be adequately
described. At this stage the paranoia sometimes returns, causing the
magician to perceive the voidness as an all- consuming malevolent
entity. Giving in to this paranoia, struggling to avoid being
devoured, brings one on to the path of those whom Crowley calls the
Black Brothers. If one does not struggle, that which perceives is
itself absorbed into the void and another condition supervenes for
which description is futile.
Footnotes:
1. Images for the Seniors of the Earth Tablet are given at the
beginning of each Senior’s section in The Book of the Seniors, which
is available through the Archives.
2. The idea that an eleventh sephira exists in this position is one
of the most vile lies ever perpetrated. It is unfortunate that some
otherwise competent scholars have made their reputations by
spreading it even further. While there is the appearance of
something occupying the center of the hexagram when it is viewed
from lower down in the Tree, this appearance is entirely
hallucinatory. The Tiphereth consciousness merely sees a reflection
of itself in the surface of the Great Sea, as a skin diver sees a
distorted reflection of himself in the waves above his head.
Go Back
The Abyss
Some wonderfully
iconoclastic and myth-shatterin’ notes proceeding
from the V.H.
Frater Joshua Norton, MoT
Concerning the Abyss
From the PODnet Thelema echo:
Date: 26 Nov 93
From: Josh Norton
Subj: the abyss
Thus said K. B. to Josh Norton:
oh good! i thought that you might find my reaction offensive.
BTW, i’ve been tryng to find out something about how you
conceptualize the abyss. i’ve been looking through whatever i’ve
found of your writings, but haven’t been able to find much. is
there a paper that you’ve written floating around in cyberspace
anywhere, that might give me some idea of your views on this? (i’ve
never felt that what the GD or crowley has said about the abyss
seemed valid. yet, i’ve not been able to even figure out my own
conceptualization of it. i just know that the crowley/GD
writings on it, don’t feel right to me.) so little has been
written about it, by anyone. i’ve even been through some of the
jewish cabalistic literature, and still havent dug up much.
There’s not a whole lot in one place -- it tends to get brought
up as a side-issue to some other topic. Besides, most of those
papers were written before I claimed the M.T. grade, so are
mostly second-hand information received by inspiration or told
to me by various magickal beings. Not very reliable.
Other places, I don’t think there’s really much available.
Crowley’s the only one I’ve seen talk about it in a magickal
context to any great extent. He must have got the idea
somewhere, but I don’t know where; I’ve never seen any sources
he might have read. (Perhaps Paul H. or some other scholarly
magician can clue us in on that.) A couple of English Christian
mystics -- can’t remember the names -- talk about it in a
similar way. In other places it’s used for a variety of
different experiences, confusing the issue.
The primary usage of the term is to denote a "gap" or
discontinuity between the perceptual states and internal
organization of the Ruach or mind aspect, and the perceptual
states of the transcendental grades. This is how Crowley uses
the term.
The traditional Western interpretation of this apparent
discontinuity is to say that there is a real gap between the
divine levels and the lower levels, as if God had taken a sword
and cut all connections between the Supernal Triad and the other
sephiroth. And having accepted the reality of the division, they
necessarily go on to view the transition to transcendental
levels as requiring the seeker to somehow "leap" or "cross over"
this gap. One gets the impression that this transition involves
all sorts of horrific experiences, confrontations with demons,
violent destruction of the self, etc., etc.
My own experience denies this view almost entirely. In the
reality of the universe, there is no gap of any sort. All parts
of existence are completely connected to each other, and are
constantly interacting. All of them are involved in every event;
the transcendentals as much as any other.
The Abyss is an illusion generated by the way in which the Ruach
filters, organizes, and assigns priorities to the elements of
experience. All the things that make up the experience of the
MoT are already present in the raw experience of the person.
It’s just that the way the Ruach processes experience creates
internal structures into which those things don’t fit.
(I’m going to have to build up to my point -- please be
patient.)
Let’s start with an extremely simplified example to illustrate
this. Say you’ve got a little computer that does certain things
when it gets a signal. Whoever programmed this computer put in
instructions for what to do when it gets the signals "01", "10",
and "11". It is capable of also receiving the signal "00", but
has no programmed instructions for that case. So what happens
when it receives a "00" signal? It either ignores it, or treats
it as one of the signals for which it does have instructions. As
far as its internal activity goes, the signal "00" simply
doesn’t exist.
On a vastly larger scale, this is what the Ruach is doing. It
only processes information for which it has a hard-wired
program, or for which it can create new programs by adapting and
combining older programs. Any information for which it can’t
make an interpreting algorithm simply doesn’t exist, as far as
it is concerned.
Most of the Ruach’s processing programs are software, and some
of them are capable of modification in such a way as to handle
the usually-excluded data that makes up the transcendental
experience. The problem is that nearly all its programming
derives (sometimes through many levels) from adaptations of the
basic "hard-wired" instructions for processing and responding to
raw data from the physical senses. That’s why the sephira Yesod,
where this processing takes place, is called "The Foundation" of
the Tree of Life.
So the entire structure of our minds, from our basic emotions up
to the most inclusive "intuitive" level, has a built-in bias
towards seeing and processing data in sensory-like ways, and an
equally complete inability to see or process information that
can’t be fit into that schema or its more abstract analogues.
Now as I said in another message, nearly all of the path of
initiation is a process of expanding the number of levels at
which we can perceive consciously and integrating each new level
into what came before. When this process is done for a given
level, its functioning becomes relatively automatic, and falls
below the threshold of awareness. Throughout most of the process
the expansion and integration are fairly well-balanced, so that
new levels open up at about the same speed with which we
integrate the old ones. The progress is incremental, allowing
gradual adaptation of old programs to new uses.
But as we reach the Exempt Adept level (in Chesed) we also get
close to the limits of the available data-flow that can be
easily integrated into a structure based fundamentally on the
programs for processing sense-data. The Ruach, deprived of its
means of further expansion, turns towards improving its internal
models, making them more complete, tying up loose ends, and
consciously dealing with aspects of the integration that were
previously done through automatic unconscious processes. The
mind starts to develop its "Grand View" of the universe, in
which all its knowledge is brought together in a single
structure.
This is where the "Abyss" starts to come into the picture. As
with previous levels of integration, the "Grand View" level
begins to fall below the threshold of consciousness. The
conscious self starts to look around for new levels to explore,
and doesn’t see any. It’s not that there isn’t anything to see;
there is plenty there. It’s that the consciousness is so
accustomed to seeing the universe through the pre-processing of
the Ruach that it literally cannot perceive anything that
doesn’t fit into the Ruach’s integrated structure.
The person thus enters into a curious and somewhat unpleasant
state. He seems to be living in a wasteland, devoid of the
life-giving, perpetually-stimulating diversity of the earlier
stages. His invocations never seem to produce anything new, just
variations on experiences that he already knows well. His
efforts to forcefully project his awareness into higher levels
leads him into states that aren’t truly new, but are obvious
distortions and perversions of his normal state of awareness. He
feels like he’s run up against a barrier like the light-speed
barrier; no matter how hard he pushes, he never quite gets
through it. And beyond the barrier -- perhaps making up the
barrier -- there appears to be nothing but a void, a total lack
of any perceptible quality whatsoever. This is the so-called
"Abyss".
I can testify from my own experience that the Wasteland is
well-named. It is a desert in which the hunger, the thirst for a
touch of a higher spirit can reach excruciating levels. (The
biblical crucifixion seems to me to be a compact but very
appropriate description of this stage.) The intensity of the
need is so great that sometimes total oblivion seems a
preferable state.
I can see how someone reaching this stage might eventually
decide that there really isn’t any further to go, turn his back
on it, and try to continue living in the world he has known.
This is what Crowley says makes a "Black Brother", one who
denies the spirit and sees himself as the epitome of creation,
with no purpose higher than his own desires.
But you’ve got to keep pushing, no matter what. Because, while
one’s conscious experience is utterly miserable, on unconscious
levels there is a very great deal going on. As I said, the
perception of this gap or void is an illusion, produced entirely
by the limitations of the Ruach with its biased processing
structures. Fortunately, the universe doesn’t give a damn about
our illusions; it just keeps working in its own way, whether we
see it or not.
In the unperceived under-reality, the magician’s invocations
(and more important, his intense hunger for the spirit) are
actually producing a response from higher levels. These may even
erupt into the conscious level on occasion, so that for brief
moments the magician gets a glimpse of what it is like on the
"other side" of the non-existent gap. But the details of these
experiences are usually forgotten almost as soon as they are
over; the mind simply can’t retain them in its current state.
Anyway, these underground activities produce the usual
destructive effects on the structure of the Ruach, and condition
at least the highest levels of the structure so that they can
change their program along lines that are not limited to the
biases mentioned above. This allows the transcendental levels to
enter the person on a conscious level, thus creating the
impression that one has "crossed" the "Abyss". But there was
really no Abyss to begin with; just an inadequate perceptual
organization.
Josh
The Illusion of the Abyss
by Benjamin Rowe,
1997
This piece was written for an English occult magazine. I forget
the title I originally put on it -- something cleverly pompous.
The word "abyss" has seen widespread use in the occult
community, with many different meanings. In various times and
places it has been used to represent everything from the
Christian Hell to existential angst. In this century, among the
many occultists influenced by Aleister Crowley, the term has
taken on a specific reference to the process of transcendence,
the events by which a person’s awareness transforms from an
individualized state into a transcendental or "enlightened"
state. Crowley called this process "Crossing the Abyss".
Crowley’s description of the process is highly dramatic and
equally idiosyncratic. It is also extremely vague, consisting of
a few symbols and metaphors that he used throughout his life,
without ever attempting to expand or explain them, or to explain
in detail the relationship between the transcendental and human
levels of being. Perhaps this vagueness is the reason for it’s
popularity; it provides a simple, easily-grasped image, however
mistaken it might be.
Crowley perceived the "Abyss" as a literal gap in the stuff of
creation, separating the human levels of existence from the
transcendental or divine levels. He describes this gap as a
region of nullity and terror, in which anything that enters is
torn asunder. (In this much, he was following a long-established
theme in Hebrew cabalistic lore.) In order to attain to
enlightenment, the magician must "leap" into this Abyss, where
his human self is ripped apart and destroyed. If he has
established enough momentum in his climb towards the divine
levels, then the divine spark in himself (freed from its
bindings to his human self) will be carried over to the other
side of the gap to become a Master of the Temple, the magickal
grade equivalent to the basic enlightened state.
Somewhere along the way from one side to the other, Crowley
says, the magician must also confront and temporarily become the
"Demon of the Abyss", whose nature is Dispersion. Crowley named
this demon Choronzon, a name for Satan from the works of Dr.
John Dee; but the characteristics he assigns to the demon owe
more to the "Dweller on the Threshold" from Bulwer-Lytton’s
Zanoni novels. It is unclear how this confrontation relates to
the destruction of the magician’s human self.
Crowley’s description of his own "crossing of the Abyss" is
recorded in his book The Vision and the Voice. The record
conforms closely to his metaphor of the process. However, his
depiction disagrees in many ways with those provided by other
enlightened people across the years; it also disagrees with my
own experience of that process, which was achieved through the
same means Crowley used: John Dee’s "Enochian" magickal system,
coupled with the system of lore from the Western traditions of
ceremonial magick and the cabala.
From the perspective of my own experience, the whole "Abyss"
concept is nonsense. There is no gap between the divine and
human levels of existence; the transcendent being is already
constantly present and active in every person. Since this is the
case, there is nothing to "cross" or "jump". The discontinuity,
to the extent there is one, is entirely a matter of perspective;
the transcendent view *is* dramatically different from the
Self-centered view common to the lower levels. But there is a
constant connection and interaction between the divine and the
human; they make up a single, undivided system.
Rather than a separation, our normal lack of awareness of the
divine aspect of ourselves is a matter of ignorance. Through
ignorance, reinforced by a lifetime of conditioning and habit --
and reinforced even more by magickal disciplines -- the
transcendent being in a person is deluded into believing it is
something that it is not: an individualized "self" or "soul",
operating in the mundane world through the medium of a
personality mask. In its ignorance, it becomes so thoroughly
identified with this self (which is a constructed thing) that it
becomes unaware that it is anything other than that self. You
might think of it as a weird sort of dharana or deep meditation;
a concentration on an object of meditation (the self, in this
case) so intent that the difference between the perceiver and
the perceived disappears.
Achieving transcendence therefore is not a matter of creating a
bridge over a gap, or of leaping a gap, or anything of that
sort. Rather, it is a matter of awakening the already-present
transcendent being from its state of identification with the
self, getting it to realize and act from its natural state.
What it takes to do this can vary widely. It might require
something as catastrophic as the complete destruction of the
"self", as in the typical Abyss myth; but it could equally be as
subtle and gentle as a breath of air slipping out through an
open window, leaving the self completely intact. In my own case,
it was somewhere between these extremes. There were some long
and rather painful steps leading up to it, but the final event
was quick, undramatic, and utterly simple.
To put the event in context, there are two main thrusts to the
magickal/cabalistic approach to initiation. First, through
invocations, astral explorations, meditation, etc., it seeks to
open up the hidden portions of the mind (both sub- and
superconscious), to bring their activity under conscious
direction, and to make use of them to explore and perceive the
corresponding aspects of the universe at large. The scope and
control exercised by the individual is constantly increased, and
the various parts brought into a state of tight coordination.
At the same time, the cabalistic side of the work seeks to bring
about an ever-increasing synthesis in the "contents" of the
mind. Through the use of correspondences, the chaos of raw
experience is gradually reduced. Ideas and experiences get
organized into hierarchies, each level abstracting something
from the lower ones, so that ever-greater numbers of events
become instances of ever- simpler ideas. Eventually things
coordinate into an elegant system of archetypes, energies, and
relationships.
By the time the person has achieved and absorbed the highest
purely human level and become an "Exempt Adept", both these
processes have pretty much been exhausted. Those parts of the
person’s being that are capable of being controlled and
coordinated by the individual self are as integrated as they are
ever going to be. The contents of the mind have been reduced to
an integrated scheme and an encompassing philosophy. He is the
Complete Individual, so to speak. Such people -- as Crowley
notes -- tend to become leaders of "schools of thought" for
spreading their philosophy; or they become priests or social
leaders of some sort.
Crowley talks about the next stage of the process as if it were
something to be consciously decided; but in fact, if it happens
out of anything except necessity, the person is probably jumping
the gun.
(I should note that the description that follows is
from my own experience, coordinated with a very few other
people’s; your mileage may vary. And this applies *only* to the
magickal/cabalistic approach; it doesn’t seem to occur -- at
least not with the same severity -- in the more mystical
approaches of the Eastern systems.)
The Exempt Adept now enters into a period of increasing
"dryness", what I call "wandering in the wasteland", following
the myth of the Grail Knights . I don’t know how this associates
with the so-called "dark night of the soul" -- descriptions of
that never resonate for me. He has reached a point of
diminishing returns in both his magickal and cabalistic
endeavors.
His magickal work still raises his consciousness above its
normal level; but instead of staying at that higher level, he
always seems to fall back to the point where he started, or
advances only the most minute increment -- far too little for
the amount of effort expended. And such advances as he makes
eventually turn out to be only variations on what he has already
accomplished, not something truly new. There seems to be some
sort of asymptotic principle in effect. Each increment he moves
above his current level requires substantially larger amounts of
effort; he can expend all the energy at his command without
getting to a stable higher level.
A similar state exists with respect to his cabalistic work. He
continues to make elaborations on his synthetic scheme, but
finds that new additions and expansions decrease in frequency.
At the same time he becomes aware that there are aspects of
existence that cannot be fit into his present scheme without
destroying it utterly and starting over from scratch; he doesn’t
know what these aspects are, exactly, but he can sense them
looming over the horizon.
And his finely coordinated Self seems to be spinning its wheels
in most of its endeavors. He can still act out the functions of
the Exempt Adept, but gets less pleasure and fulfillment out of
doing so. He can’t get a grip on things, on a way to use this
great Self of his; he feels like he is trying to act in a
frictionless environment.
The reason for all this is that the Adept is looking for
something that isn’t there -- that is, a continuation of the
path as he has experienced it so far, with its blinding
revelations, ecstatic highs, encompassing archetypes, etc. There
just isn’t any more of that, above his current level; such
things are characteristic of the human-accessible magickal
realms, not the transcendent realms. But he doesn’t know that.
Needless to say, the Adept in this situation is a pretty
miserable character. Not all the time; usually he can go about
his business in the character of the Adept without any
difficulty. But periodically the futility of it all hits, and
the despair and desperation can reach incredible levels of
intensity. What he wants, more than anything, is to get OUT,
without seeing any way of doing so. Like the mythical Christ on
his cross, he calls out to his god, and gets no answer. All he
can do is suffer alone.
But even despair has its limits; when nothing one does can have
any effect on the situation, one eventually just gives it up. He
gets beyond hope of anything happening, beyond despair that
nothing is happening, and just lives life as it comes, without
any particular plans or expectations, without any desire beyond
the moment. He goes on because that is what he does, and for no
purpose. This whole process can go on for a long time. In my own
case, the period of increasing despair lasted over five years,
the period of "just living" lasted another five.
The actual awakening of transcendent being seems an anticlimax
after the wasteland period. Even now, four years after the fact,
I am uncertain exactly what triggered the moment when it awoke.
All I recall is that some chance remark by a person in an online
discussion group caused me to make an assessment, and the being
noted that it was no longer identical with the self, but was
aware without dependence upon the facilities of the
individualized "soul". It was now the no-thing-ness of Binah,
instead of identifying with the differentiated activities of the
lower spheres. It could put the self on, like a set of clothes,
and off again at will.
What happened then is another story. But a few things to note:
Despite being very unpleasant,
there was no destruction of the individualized self
involved; the transcendent being simply "stepped out" of it,
leaving it more or less intact, for the moment. A rather
substantial re-orientation of it took place later, but it
was still undamaged.
There was no "jumping into the Abyss"; in fact, no Abyss as
such.
There was no confrontation with the Demon Choronzon, or any
other supposed "denizen" of the "Abyss". No apparently
external horrors of any sort, not even Chthulhu.
No particular invocations were involved in triggering the
event. It took place during an hiatus in my Enochian work,
and that work was directed to other purposes in any case.
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