The Secret Conference

By Gérard Aumont.

In the heart of the mountain-fledging forests of —————, in one of the wildest solitudes of Europe, the mysterious Brotherhood, whose name we dare not write, holds its secret sessions.

Its adepts, guardians of esoteric tradition which had been faithfully transmitted through the centuries by their prudence, labour in the sublime and inviolate silence of these untrodden sanctuaries.

Pilots of the ship of mankind, guardians of the mystery of its holy spirit, doctors alike of its bodies, its souls, and its social organism, they keep watch upon human destiny from the citadel of their fortress.

Bending their brows over the mysteries of life to seek its secret, they never lay claim openly to power.

These unknown initiates possess in their headquarters a library of inestimable value, where immense masses of documents dispute the right of place with manuscripts of the most fabulous antiquity and books precious beyond all computation.

Ever since the time when man began to think and write, the purest and the deepest of their works have been collected century after century in this secret refuge, so that this hidden domain has always served as the well-spring of the supreme wisdom.

Pythagoras, whose illustrious name dominates all Greek philosophy, whose influence has modified the most diverse sects; Plotinus of the school of Alexandria, the initiate of the Mysteries, the Master of metaphysic; Iamblicus, who carries theurgic science to a point of unsurpassed perfection; Avicenna, whose work in the Middle Ages passed beyond the frontiers of Islam to enlighten all the World—Then again Basil Valentine, one of the founders of modern chemistry; Paracelsus, who overan all Europe and began to teach a new method based on a profound knowledge of true material laws; Michael Maier, the German alchemist; Fludd, who studied the forces of nature; John Hetdon, the apologist of the Rosicrucians; William Blake, the poet, painter and seer of the Eternal, and how many others:—Such names as these have cloven the Veil of their eternal Silence!

It is in the midst of the works of all the thinkers of the world, works which declare the obstinate passion of the loftiest spirits of mankind to discover the Great Secret, that the members of this ancient and veritable Order pursue their tireless vigil in the night of the world, sentinels of the countless legions of men.

Careless of the waves of social upheaval, immune to hate, masters of Time; standing like a cliff which defies the waves of Ocean, the members of this Brotherhood enrich subtly the course of thought, direct from afar literature, philosophy and imagination. They are the true masters of the world.

It is these men, the representatives of this powerful and mysterious Order, who designated only a few months ago as the new Prophet the Master Therion; and as the new Law of Humanity his formula: Do what thou wilt.

The Master Therion, who was born in the year of the foundation of the Theosophical Society under the sign of the Lion, devoted himself (after having perceived the vanity of all terrestrial ambition) to the search of Truth; and consecrated his life to the accomplishment of the Great Work.

Years of dreadful ordeals which one might have thought beyond human power to endure, together with profound study of magic and mysticism, brought him to the highest grade of the most important branch of this secret Body of initiates. He showed himself the Master of all of them in science and in power. In the course of his researches he travelled to the most distant regions of the earth in order to study, in its own home, every source of illumination.

The Sages of China and the mysterious Skooshoks of Thibet; no less than the devotees of the Vedanta, and the Initiates of Moslem mysticism confided their secrets to him to be used in the great purpose which he had conceived as his life-work.

Now the Masters, the Secret Chiefs of the Order to which he owed his first initiation, those who direct the spiritual destinies of this planet, never ceased to watch over him. From time to time they sent him emissaries to instruct him in many difficult ways of illumination. Thanks to them he was, when the time came for him to return to the country of his birth, the most advanced adept in the world.

But the Master Therion was so far from recognizing the progress which he had made that he actually advanced the Great Work as one disheartened by hopeless failure! Yet even in doing this, he was, unknown to himself, the instrument of the inscrutable will of his chiefs. He resumed his travels, but this time as one of the profane.

From time immemorial Thibet has been considered the Sanctuary of occult knowledge years ago were so appalled by the complete presentation of the Christian mysteries in Lamaism that they were compelled to invent a theory that the Devil had instructed them, in order to discredit Christianity! But in 1904 the sanctuary was no more fitted to serve as a refuge for the adepts. The British expedition under Younghusband was already in contemplation; and the Masters of Mankind formed the resolution of abandoning the Plateau of Central-Asia for the less accessible solitudes of Africa.

It was then in Egypt, in the Spring of 1904, that the Masters came to Therion and made to him the great revelation: intrusting to him the New Bible, the Book of the Law.

It is in this book, mysteriously dictated by an Intelligence whose nature has not yet been fully understood, but one evidently operating in concord with the Masters, that he took at their command the name Therion. This name has the number of 6 6 6, according to both the Greek and Hebrew methods of calculation. This number is primarily a number sacred to the Sun, the father of all light and life; besides this, there are many secrets hidden in it. We cannot here enter into matters so obscure.

The Masters then put Therion at the head of the Order; and foreseeing a world-catastrophe which threatened civilization (and thereby the very existence of the sacred tradition) ordered him to publish the whole of the secret knowledge which he possessed.

There ensued a struggle (extending over several years) against the will of the Masters, for he found himself the greatest repugnance to the task appointed him. The Chiefs made him pass through ordeals still more fearful than anything he had previously undergone. But he issued victorious, for this was the supreme initiation; and having conquered, he took up his work in the world.

Still further tortures were in store for him; for it must needs be that he should suffer the experience of every kind of misfortune, that he might understand the problems of a World-Teacher.

It was more than twenty years after the great revelation in Egypt that the Master Therion, once more on African soil, at Sidi Bou Said, issued in conformity with the secret will of his chiefs, a manifesto entitled "To Man". This gives in a clear and succinct form an indication of his office and his aim.

This "Mediterranean Manifesto", so-called, had been printed but was not yet promulgated, when the representatives of that venerable and ancient Order which we dare not name, sent messages to the Master Therion to inform him that his new formula was accepted as the basis of the next step to be undertaken by Humanity in the course of its spiritual and moral development, and for the attainment of increased control over Nature.

They invited him to be present at their headquarters at the summer Solstice where they had summoned to meet him eight persons, delegates of the principal secret Orders which keep watch over the destinies of the race, that he might take the oath of a World-Teacher, and be by them officially recognized as such.

In the romantic solitude of the hidden sanctuary of the Order, from the confines of the world, these persona assembled as at a mysterious word of command, and solemnly decreed that having studied the work of the Master Therion, they formally accepted his as the World-Teacher.

His hour being come, the Master Therion has appeared to proclaim the Advent of the Aeon of Horus.

We must explain what is meant by the Aeon of Horus. In the known history of mankind there are two well-marked periods; they overlap to some extent, according to time and space, but the general characterization is perfectly well recognizable.

The first of these periods is called the Aeon of Isis, or the age of the mother; in this stage, nature is conceived as a generous and fertile mother producing all good things spontaneously. There is no idea that the intervention of man is necessary, and the secret of sex was maintained in the temples as the greatest of Nature's mysteries.

The knowledge, obviously enough, enables the initiate priests to perform various useful miracles and so to rule the vulgar. Politically this stage corresponds to matriarchy.

In the second stage, the mystery of sex has been divulged, and become more or less common property. The father now seems the all important agent; hence we have a number of cults of various dying Gods; the subject has been studied so fully by Frazer, and other famous writers, that it is unnecessary to enlarge upon it.

In this period the formula of Magick (that is to say, the underlying principle in accordance with which all the operations of nature, and therefore of science or Magick, are performed) is death followed by resurrection.

This formula began to fall into discredit when it was found that the sun could rise every morning and return from the South after every winter Solstice without the intervention of the medicine-men. Politically this period corresponds to the patria potestas, when the father is the supreme head of the family, even to having the power of life and death over his wife or wives and children; (wives for this period is ploygynic as that of Isis was polyandrous.)

The third period, on which we are now entered, is that of Horus the Child. The operations of Nature no longer appear catastrophic, but as a continuous curve; death is understood as inherent in every one of the processes of life. The formula of the dying God has not been abrogated; it has been absorbed into a more complete understanding; hence the upshot of every action is a child. Even the sex struggle has ceased to have political meaning. We recognize naturally that the interests of each individual are paramount; the family system has reached the state politically that the vermiform appendix has biologically.

The sense of sin has practically disappeared; one of the best pieces of evidence that the Aeon of Horus has actually arrived is that those who have come to puberty since 1904, when the Law of Thelema was given, are completely free from conscience in the old sense of the word; it is no longer possible to fool the young; the world, too, belongs to the young in spirit.

The great war set the seal on this state of things; it is only the beginning of the destruction of the old civilization, but even so it is evident that it would be ridiculous to attempt to rebuild the world on the old lines. The religions and moral sanctions of the old Aeon of Osiris are putrid.

The word of this Law is Thelema, the mysteries of whose meaning and whose numerical value are extraordinary.

The ethical aspect of the Law of Thelema is simple enough theoretically. "Do what thou wilt" does not mean "do what you please"; though this degree of emancipation is implied, that we can no longer say à priori that any given course of action is "wrong". Every man and every woman has an absolute right to do his or her true will.

At the same time, to quote the Book of the Law, "Thou hast no right but to do thy will". So the, the new Law really announces a stricter bondage than any previous law and this in accordance with biological teaching. An organism progresses by self-imposed inhibitions.

The more this Law is examined, the better is it understood to be a sublime synthesis, and the only possible one, of all the teachings of all the sciences, from embryology to history. Many a volume might be, and indeed will be, written on this subject.

So much for the theory of the Law. Unfortunately, the practice is by no means a simple problem. It is easy to say that man can only satisfy his nature by devoting himself to the purpose for which he is fitted; but it is quite another matter to decide what that purpose may be in any given case.

An immense and universal technique has to be worked out; and it is here that the Master Therion needs and demands the co-operation of the best scientific minds of the World.

We cannot expect the vulgar to understand so much as the meaning of the law; and yet society can only be made efficient by placing intelligently each of its members in the situation suited to his or her nature.

This means that civilization must be directed by a body of experts, trained to carry into operation the Law of Thelema.

The Master Therion has fulfilled the conditions required of all those teachers whom the Great White Brotherhood sends forth at intervals of approximately 2000 years (with lesser prophets at intervals of one-sixth of this period, as conditions demand) to bring to mankind a word which may serve it as a new magical formula and help it up the steep and thorny road which leads to Perfection.

We may explain this by reference to history; in the past we have these examples: Laotze, who pronounced the word Tao: Gautama, Anatta: Dionysis, I.A.O.: Mohammed, Allah: each word in its own time and place having served as the formula of a new law.

Having been accepted by the great Order of Initiates as the teacher for whom the world has been waiting, the Master Therion has explained his Will.

He has taken upon himself the sin of the whole world in order that the prophecies may be fulfilled, enabling thereby mankind to take the next step from the formula of Osiris to that of Horus.

But it must not be supposed that the Master has any intention of manifesting himself to the world, still less of putting himself forward. He prefers to live in obscurity, inaccessible, directing from his solitude the secret springs of power. He will not intervene personally unless his presence becomes necessary to the accomplishment of his Work.

It remains for us, whether individuals or corporate bodies, whether interested in any form of occultism or no, (the Master says that he does not want professes students, he wants the ordinary man and woman) to rally to his formula: Do what thou wilt. It should be accepted as being the only solution possible of the many crises which confront our hopeless generation.

All hatreds and sectarian quarrels should be swept away by adhesion to this simple formula. By preparing the way of the Master in this manner, we may introduce him to leave his seclusion and guide us openly.

Those who understand the importance of this declaration should seek to get in touch with Master Therion. To do this they should proclaim His Law and organize its adherents with such vigour that he will be obliged to take notice.

For it is one of the first consequences of this Law of Thelema that it is useless and stupid to attempt to force anything down peoples' throats; he does his work with absolute carelessness of its results and he will only help those who help themselves.

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