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Correspondence from George MacNie Cowie to Aleister Crowley
14 Glenisla Gardens, Edinburgh.
[Undated: circa 1916?]
[First page or pages of this letter are missing]
As regards the VII Degree Knowledge, et sequitur.
There is of course a great interest in re-reading with this clue many passages that formerly seemed mere jargon to me. Thomas Vaughan has e.g. suddenly become luminous in many ways. I am quite clear that I have now been led to know beyond doubt what the First Matter is. The feeling is that I know the Sanctuary of Nature and possess the Key, but that I do not know how to open the door, that being the real secret.
I can see how the Matter is the original primitive (material) substance semi-spiritual, immortal and containing in itself the archetypes of all forms and possessing the double potency of attracting to itself individual spirits and of attracting to itself particles of gross matter to form their temporary envelope on this plane.
I can see how Aphrodite was said to be born fro the foam, and many another allegory will become luminous no doubt. With regard to the further knowledge, I seem to be in the same position as I was to the VII degree, having a sort of general idea, without being able to clearly and definitely formulate it.
The alchemical terms are still a good deal of a puzzle, but it is impossible to resist coming to one conclusion, which I will set down partly to get your comment and partly to help clarify my mind. I am not discomfited if it seems ridiculous, knowing that the Work is ridiculous to the vulgar.
Well then, it appears to me that
what is represented by the athanor is clear enough (º).
This unique instrument being filled with vital heat
(the true elemental
Mainly when the Operation consists in the mixture of the q.e's [quintessence] et foemina and their reduction afterwards to a form of powder or stone. This does not seem incredible, nor the powers attributed to it any more miraculous than that of the original substance.
The Secret seems to be that of some quite simple method by which the operation is accomplished and which I can by no means grasp.
The Green Lion and the Red Dragon or red powder are a puzzle, but I have a vague notion by analogy of what is hinted at.
The picture of the 'Gold Seekers' seems clear, one recognises what is indicated by the stream which is what the gold seekers are digging for but which passes through their hands without their attaching any importance to it.
The 'Tree of Life' is not so completely clear.
By the blood of the Innocents in which the sun and moon are having a mixed bath (also the skewered baby) I see a hint that the operation is apart from the purposes of generation (?). But it's a head splitting business altogether. From this protean substance more appears to be extractable than the material chemist gets out of coal tar.
Now, knowing how it is done, the ? might arise, why don't you get hold of the stone, as medicine, and rise superior to the phlebitis and other little worries, for good. You gave me the hint that it requires, somehow, the cooperation of several people. ? . why. I assume also that there's some point of etiquette to debar you from making use of it.
The above is all very well, but the important matter is to discover the method by which the LUX is attained to. The arousing of the Kundalini perhaps means only the extension of the consciousness into the secret light contained in the first matter, the opening of the inner eye and the surmounting of the illusion that oneself is the mass of gross matter which the more subtle original matter has spun round itself.
What has made it affect me so much is that the Knowledge has been slowly imbuing me and helped by these last chapters I have come to realise the extreme holiness and sacredness of the secret, so that I feel a different being, whatever grossness that was left in me having now, I do believe, disappeared. And how little I seem to have understood you before.
And I feel as if I'd got the knowledge only to come within measurable distance of profaning it. It leaves me beaten, crushed, as if I couldn't lift my head any more. Do please write, or even send me a night cable letter. It means about a months suspense else. The one comfort is that I now feel that He is in me and I in Him and that I am able to call to Him for peace.
M[Mater—Leila Waddell] may have thought no more about it, but I will try to let her infer, first time that we meet that I was sort of 'kidding' her, it's safest. But it will make me a thousandfold more careful hereafter and never to pose as possessor of superior knowledge.
I understand so much better and it's good to be able without cant or snivel to sign myself yours in the Lord.
Geo M Cowie.
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of the Philosophers?) is placed within the Vase (º
º). One understands that
this must be done sacramentally, and the sensuous element
kept at bay. This being so, the athanor may be retained for
an unknown time in a gentle heat. Probably the matter of
quintessence of the Vase represents
which
has somehow to be combined with the
,
extracted and dried. But how? I assume that the operation
will terminate in the ordinary manner by the projection of
the