The A∴A∴

[Consists of fragments of Crowley's writings acquired by Cosmo Trelawny during World War II. These fragments were copied by Cosmo Trelawny from a mass of Crowley's papers and typescripts left in his rooms by Macgregor Reid. The originals were then sold to a bookseller, and lost when his shop was bombed during the war.]

The one really important and vital movement is that known as the A∴A∴. This Order has a traditional basis extending back for centuries; and the documentary proofs of its Work in the whole of the nineteenth century are still extant.

Its Chiefs include such great names as Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Levi [Eliphas Levi], Fred Hockley, Kenneth Mackenzie, Gerald Massey, General Furlong, Wynn Westcott, Henry Melville, F. Tennyson (brother to the poet), A. Tudor, G.R. Sims, William Gibson, Sir Edwin Arnold, Andrew Pears (soap king), MacGregor Mathers (translator of the 'Kabbala Denudata', Jaido Morata (author of 'The New Koran'), Doctor Todhunter (author of 'The Comedy of Sighs'), Eugene Vintras, William Morris, Dr. Churchward, Dr. Berrage (annotator of T. Lake Harris' works), Henry Samson, Edgar Kingston, Henry Taylor, Alfred Arnold, Jesse Collins, John S. Wright, Joseph Mitchell, Allan Bennett (known as Bhikku Ananda Metteya), Chance Newton ('Carados' of the 'Sunday Refree'), E. Maitland, Dr. Woodman, Massingham (of the 'Daily Chronicle'), Dr. Kenealey (Counsel in Tichbourne claimant trial), W.T. Stead, Naka Yama Niki, John T. Ellam, Charles Rosher, Norah Emily Farnario, Fielder (Frater Amenosis), Dr. Macgregor Reid, Thomas Driberg (M.P.) Swedenborg, Homer Lane 'cherio'. Mable Collins, 'Tautridelta — and hundreds of others.

In the latter part of the nineteenth century the work divided itself into two main branches; the secret branch which worked by instruction to small groups with a carefully graded system of degrees known as the 'Golden Dawn'; while the exoteric work consisted of the formation of the Theosophical Society by H.P. Blavatsky [Helena Petrovna Blavatsky].

Notes on the above (made at random)

Eliphas Levi—A traitor whose precarious existence was snuffed out amidst the last inane 'Offices' of the Roman Catholic Church which had previously expelled him from her bacchanalian bosom. When he issued his misleading 'Doctrine and Ritual of Magic' he had only partly 'ascended the Grade'. Its publication at once closed to him the Path of Occult Progress. His outstanding faults were false pride, intolerance and moral cowardice.

William Morris—Another traitor justly self-hounded from the Hermetic Order. Some years before his death his Socialism had degenerated into transcendental imperialism. A great pity because he combined a lively imagination with some psychic development.

Henry Taylor—A carpenter of Leamington (my native place). He organised a small Hermetic group composed of Alfred Arnold, Jesse Collins and John S. Wright. He was expelled from the Order for attending a Druid conference at Stonehenge and introducing political propaganda in connection with the agricultural labourer. He was forced to emigrate to Australia—no doubt he was more at home in Botany Bay.

Edgar Kingston—Born in Germany, but naturalised here, was unassuming, emotional and far too introspective. He married a very beautiful girl who died four years later, leaving Kingston infatuated with her memory. He sought consolation in necromancy hoping to contact his loved one thereby.

(2) Mrs. Helen Wilman (poxy) Post, editor of 'Freedom', who was 'pulled' for defrauding the American postal department. She died forsaken by her friends and admirers, in spite of having published the books 'The Conquest of Poverty' and 'The Conquest of Death'.

(3) Mr. Harry Harrison Brown, editor of 'Now'. He was completely ruined.

(4) Mr. Moses (foxy) Harrison, editor of 'Lucifer'. He died suddenly.

(5) The Rev. Chas. A. Mitchell, editor of the puerile 'Stella Purity Record'. He also expired suddenly.

The 'Beaver' [Lord Beaverbrook] has been permitted to live and function in filthy fulsomeness, only because the Guardian of the Beast wishes to deal with him personally after he has 'passed over'—the longer he lives, the more he will have to answer for.

Anna Kingsford, whose campaign against vivisection verged upon the fanatical, claimed to have exploited this malignant force to paralise and strike with death both Claud Bernard and Paul Bert and to have brought Pasteur within an inch of his grave. She most ungratefully tried to 'fix' me; she lost out, and died in the prime of life, after she had written 'The Perfect Way in Diet' . . . she was a rabid vegetarian.

Another editor I became occultly interested in because of his vitriolic attacks upon myself and teaching was James (tripey) Tevnan, who dropped dead in the offices of the 'Empire News'.

The Masters alone can transmute the evil effects of the deadly Sushumna breath-flow into a blessing. This they do by virtue of meditation, concentration and affirmation.

The right nostril flow is best suited for objective mind activities.

The left nostril breath is associated with subjective mind activities. The Ida Nerve arrests the etheric particles and carries them down the spine in a continuous current only when the air passes through the left nasal passage during inhalation. Therefore the psychological moment to impress ones' desires upon the subconscious mind is at the time of inhaling, for then the thought conducted through the medium of the brain will travel along the etheric current.

To develop clairvoyant and occult powers, Occult Adepts swallow air several times a day. By doing this methodically they benefit generally and also gain complete control over the muscles of the gullet and stomache. The following method is used:—

Close the mouth and place the tip of the tongue against the roof of the mouth, just above the teeth. Inhale air through the nostrils and closing the glottis with the epiglottis, send the air down the gullet by the action of the root of the tongue and the throat.

A change in the valency and polarity of the astral body gives rise to a radical change in the breath-flow. In point of fact the Cosmic energy regulates the breathing.

4.

The Cone.

The Magician must be wary in his use of his powers; he must make every act not only accord with his Will, but with the proprieties of his position at the time. It might be my will to reach the foot of a cliff; but the easiest way—also the speediest, most direct, least obstructed, the way of minimum effort—would be simply to jump. I should have destroyed my will in the act of fulfilling it, or what I mistook for it; for the True Will has no goal, its nature belongs to Go.

Similarly a parabola is bound by one law which fixes its relation with two straight lines at every point; yet it has no end short of infinity, and it continually changes its direction.

The initiate who is aware who he is, can always check his conduct by reference to the determinants of his curve, and calculate his past, his future, his bearings, and his proper course at any assigned moment, he can even comprehend himself as a simple idea. He may attain to measure fellow-parabolas, ellipses that cross his path, hyperbolas that span all space with their twin wings. Perhaps he may come at long last, leaping beyond the limits of his own law, to conceive that sublimely stupendous outrage to Reason, the Cone. Utterly inscrutable to him, he is yet well aware that he exists in the nature thereof, that he is necessary thereto, that he is ordered thereby, and that therefrom he is sprung, from the loins of so fearful a Father.

His own infinity becomes zero in relation to that of the least fragment of the solid. He hardly exists at all. Trillions multiplied by trillions of trillions of such as he could not cross the frontier even of breadth, the idea which he came to guess at only because he felt himself bound by some mysterious power. Yet Breadth is equally a nothing in the presence of the Cone. His first conception must evidently be a frantic spasm, formless, insane, not to be classed as articulate thought. Yet, if he develops the faculties of his mind, the more he knows of it, the more he sees that its nature is identical with his own whenever comparison is possible.

5.

North-South-East-West.

The Masters taught that when a man sleeps with the head towards either North, South, East, or West he attracts various influences, which depend upon the relation of his magnetic poles to those of the earth. Lying north and south brings peace and comfort, and prolongs life; lying east and west brings discord and failure. In my opinion, it is best to work from east to west; Juste, who is a blatant fool, goes to extremes and holds that all work executed from north to south is a sheer waste of effort.

6.

The Banyan Tree.

The Banyan Tree is the longest lived tree in the world. The sap is full of the life preserving and brain building substance, phosphorus.

When I was in India (1903) I found the sap increased my sexual expression 100 per cent.

The leaves of the tree contain a form of milk, and I found that a few leaves were sufficient as food each day. The Western student is not always able to get Banyan Tree milk or fruit; I can, however, recommend a preparation which may be used as a substitute—this simple compound is Ghee.

Ghee is an equal mixture of butter freed from water and honey; a tablespoonful should be taken morning and evening. It is certainly a remarkable elixir.

7.

Ghosts.

The average ghost—how should one define it?—certainly as unsubstantial and, therefore, on the physical side, comparatively harmless. If it does harm, it is because as a visitant it is so rare, and as a spectacle so unnatural that it has a disturbing effect on the nervous system. Mathers used to materialise horrible thought-forms and project them, but they did not really worry me as my aura was too positive—although they frightened my wife, whose aura was always negative, because of her habitually drunken condition.

The imagination of the races on the Lower Danube has evolved a peculiarly menaceful kind of spook—the vampire, which, retaining all its bodily attributes quits its grave in the night season to suck the blood of sleeping people. In this more advanced country vampires don't wait till their bodies are in the churchyard, they absorb the vitality of others and like that cunning and crapulous old scoundrel Dr. C[hurch]-W[ood] they survive for years as striking instances of delayed burial.

Dr. Mac[gregor] R[eid], the self-styled 'Chief Druid' emulated the Vampirisation method of King David, and slept with two virgins for some years before he was transformed into a frog of the Astral.

The usual ghost—as I have suggested is a poor thing, and the main reason for its manifestation is either to prolong or revive an acquaintance with some cherished brothel, or to reproach the 'half-buried dead' with an unavenged crime on the scene of its commission.

Traditionally a ghost is visible, an eidolon; otherwise it would be no proper ghost, and would lose ninety five per cent of its terrors, while not ceasing to be an infernal nuisance.

There are among the unenlightened various modes of explaining the world of being. Poltergeist phenomena might well puzzle the materialism of Hume and Immaterialism of Berkeley. Here we have, again according to the mind-blind an invisible and incomprehensible agent producing visible and sensible effects.

The subject of ghostly visitations is a very wide one indeed, the ex-schoolmaster, Elliot O'Donnell tried to get to the bottom of the subject, but in reality never got much further than the bottoms of the snotty-nosed schoolboys he used alternatively to tickle and flog.

When the late Lord Roseberry began his long-winded book 'The Last Phase' relating to the deflated 'Lion of the Thicket'—Napoleon—, we are told that he acted in response to a mysterious mandate and felt he must, at all costs, ;lay a ghost'. One was—on his own confession, haunting him then, possibly that of Napoleon himself—but not the 'boney-part'.

One might contend that the great little despot became a ghost from the moment he was shipped on board H.M.S. Bellerephon. Similarly all men who have retired from business are but 'shades' of their former selves. According to Soapy Hudson—see his 'Psychic Phenomena' for the bubbles he blew to consider how far this very convenient explanation fits the facts, as I am reasonably able to present them.

I mentioned just now the late Lord Roseberry's study of Napoleon's last phase—that is his life of captivity on the lonely rock of St. Helena. As Napoleon was a Volsung born out of due time, so it was highly probable that his 'passing out' would be attended by unusual circumstances. The following is an authentic account of a singular apparition, the Emperor's vision of his 'dead wife' Josephine, whom he undoubtedly loved, but put away, as Man of Destiny, to marry a Princess and perpetuate an imperial line.

Some days before he himself expired, he said to Monthelon—a member of his suite, "I have just seen dear Josephine, but she would not kiss me. When I would have taken her in my arms she tore herself away. She sat over yonder, there where I thought she sat yesterday". Hallucination? Ah yes, a very glib solution.

Another story which refers to Napoleon, was told me by W.H. Crosland, who because of his close study of the Scots was driven to drink, will be more perplexing to mugwumps. On the day and hour of his 'death', there came to his mother at Rome his exact image in appearance and gesture. Addressing her he talked as if he had just quitted the illustrious exile, saying finally:—"At this moment he is liberated from his sufferings, he is happy". The mother of Napoleon was deeply impressed by the incident, and at once mentioned it to her entourage. It appears that three other inmates of the palace had observed the visitor, and search was made for him all over Rome.

The quest proved fruitless—not a sign had been seen of anyone bearing the least resemblance to the mysterious arrival. Madame Bonaparte was more then ever convinced that what she had beheld was in very deed the wraith of her son, and, so far from being terrified by the vision—if vision it was—it produced in her a gentle ecstasy. She never tired of repeating that the person was like Napoleon in voice, in gesture, and in figure.

The imbecility of age? A poor old mother humoured by obsequious attendants? Perhaps, but how does that account for the plain coincidence? You can scarcely select haphazard a dozen families, without finding one or two members of them who have received at the moment of death of some near relative a communication announcing the fact at a distance. These communications are often made by the dying person appearing to some member of the family at the moment of passing away. There have of course been numerous instances of telepathy unrelated to the decay of the faculties. Call it telepathy then—the term is at least scientific.

When Bonaparte died at St. Helena, his heart was extracted with the design of its being preserved. The British physician who had charge of that organ had deposited it in a silver basin, filled with hot water, and retired to rest, leaving the tapers burning beside it in the room. While lying, half awake, he heard, first a rustling noise, then a plunge into the water of the basin, and then the sound of an object falling with a rebound on the floor. Dr. A. sprang from his bed, and the cause of the intrusion was soon explained. It was an enormous rat, dragging the heart of Napoleon to its hole. A few moments more, and that which before had been too vast in its ambition to be satisfied with the sovereignty of continental Europe, would have been found in a more degrading position than the dust of Caesar stopping a beer barrel—it would have been devoured as the supper of a rat.

Wynn W[estcott], the coroner who often purloined pieces of the bodies he 'sat on', claims that he was haunted by the ghost of an infuriated sex-maniac whose penis he pilfered for pickling. He said that had he been able to make it 'stand' he would have had it erected as an aerial on the roof of the Physical Research Society's premises. W[ynn] W[estcott] had a sense of humour in spire of his partiality for the putrid.

The story of Napoleon's double recalls a weird fancy of Dante's. When nearly at the bottom o Hell he arrived at the place where the spirits of the murdered were immured. He was accosted by a certain Friar Alberic, who announced himself pleasantly as a dealer in figs. The jest was not over subtle, but, to avoid misapprehensions, it may be as well to mention that the figs spoken of were not the medium of poisoning—an art which was brought to perfection in mediaeval Italy. No, the real meaning is that this jovial cleric made the extermination of his guests a feature of desert, and, according to some, he pleased himself in this manner more than once.

It is curious that a man of such atrocity should not, if the law was too weak to deal with him, have fallen beneath the dagger of private vengeance. As a matter of fact his fate was widely different. Dante could not believe that the man was dead, for when he set out on his great pilgrimage, Alberic had given every proof of being alive, eating, drinking, frigging, sleeping and pruning himself. The bard scented some mystery—it did not seem a case of sudden death, though his interlocutor had clearly gone out of his way to court such an end.

Further conversation ensued, from which it appeared that the ferocious friar had been turned out of his body by a demon, who continued to inhabit it. The body went on functioning as usual, no one perceiving the slightest variation—so at least Alberic supposed, though he had no recent information of what was going on in the upper world. He declared that his case was in no way exceptional. On that point I see no reason to disagree with him. Some alleged friends of mine who have never attempted to rape my wife or mistress hold that the ghastly experience, as far as may be judged, has no backing in reality, otherwise we should never know for certain who was who. Well, do we? I wonder which was the ghost—the real Alberic or the false one? Or shall we say that there were two ghosts—alike as peas?

A certain butcher, a drunkard, lay in delirium tremens. Strange visions tormented him—visions of all the animals he had slaughtered, and which now in raw dishabele, shouldered their blood-stained way to his bedside. An appalling experience, that, for a useful servant of the public, which little thinks of the risks run by genial butcher men.

Once upon a time all the medicos in Madrid were smitten with a kind of Egyptian plague, neither more nor less than a sudden invasion by the ghosts of their late patients. Their doors were besieged by a throng of these importunate spectres, who left no room for the entry of living patients, naturally more welcome, if only because they were more remunerative. There was a partial exception—an obscure physician, who was afflicted with only one solitary ghost.

The consequence was that all in Madrid who were sick, or alarmed about their symptoms, flocked to his consulting room, and he was understood to be making a harvest out of the tribulation of his professional brethren. The latter, of course, were in a fluster. They held a council of war, and, at length, by their combined wisdom, evolved a means of escape from the difficulty. They gave out that if their rival had but one ghost, it was because that ghost, when alive and in the flesh, had been his one and only patient.

Such is the tale as I heard Dr. (weed-killer) Starkie, the abortionist, tell it, ending as a lover of 'limitation' would on the point. What happened afterwards—whether the invalids, their confidence shaken in the one-spook practitioner, forced their way through the blockading 'revenants', or resigned themselves to die at the hands of an incompetent apothecary—must be left to the imagination.

In connection with some forms of poltergeist phenomena, there are human freaks beside which the normal male is the merest midget. I have known the subconscious minds of highly strung female mesmeric subjects cause surprising action at a distance. And all this too in spite of sarcastic scoffers and sleekheaded corpulent suckers who, unlike Shakespeare's Cassius, sleep o'  nights undisturbed by rites, charms, incantations and the horror and delight of Voodooism. In passing however I would ask: Is it likely that Bob Southey, praised by Byron for his sound common sense, and fine prose, but damned for his somewhat ineffectual poetry, would treat Poltergeistical phenomena as of great significance, if one the face of it there were nothing of the sort?

Sir Roger de Whalingham of Withycome Raleigh Devon was an exponent of the delicate art of Palingenesy—an art intended to demonstrate the Lucretian doctrine of spirits, which supposes them to be a material product thrown off like films or membranes from the surface of bodies. Among its professors may be ranked our own Sir Kenelm Digby, Father Kircher, Gafferel Vallemont and others, and experiments upon the resurrection of plants were performed before the Royal Society. But the great question was the adequacy of this fascinating theory to explain the appearance of the spirits of departed men.

Sir Roger was said to have pounded in a mortar the skull of a local malefactor who had been recently hanged, and the powder being left in a paper on the table, he was—like Napoleon's codtor—aroused about midnight by a noise which caused him to rise from his bed.

The clamour continued about this table without any visible agent, and at length he traced it to the powder, in the midst of which he now beheld, with mixed feelings, a small head with open bloodshot eyes glaring at him; presently two branches appeared which formed into arms and hands; then the ribs became visible, which were soon clothed with muscles and integument; next the lower extremities sprouted out, and when they appeared perfect, the puppet (for his size was small) reared himself on his feet; instantly his clothes came upon him, and he appeared in the very cloak he wore at his execution. Suddenly between himself and the casement, Sir Roger saw a thick little cloud condensed into an oval form. It enveloped the ghastly dwarf who, with a thin piercing scream, vanished through the window.

It was—according to ancient chronicles—also the fantastic truth that Sir Roger was wont to be visited, naturally before cock crow, by denizens of the neighbourhood churchyard, who required seven requiems to be chanted for the repose of their souls, the ghosts themselves joining in. Not a night passes, but that the weird strains were wafted down the valley of the Exe, and down at Kenton village the awe struck cottagers would come to their doors and listen intently to the solemn and lugubrious sounds.

Do I know if this friend of ghosts and goblins, this bogey-feeder really lived? Ask Harry, no doubt he will tell you for a Price, and what's more prove it. In the parish of Withycombe, Devon, stands the ancient Church of St. John in the Wilderness, which, as is known to all in the country east of the Exe, was forsaken by the parishioners because the edifice and the adjoining cemetery were overrun by ghosts, so that, about the middle of the 18th century, they were fain to build them a chapel for divine service away from the infested spot.

Familiarity breeds contempt; the average type of ghost is apt to become merely a bore. The right way to treat bores is not to speak to them or of them. In the majority of cases coldness and neglect have their due effect, and the disconsolate visitor usually takes himself off to resume his pranks, perhaps among the spiritists.

8.

Crooked.

It is claimed that the Hebrew philosopher Maimondes beat Einstein by some seven hundred years with his theory of relativity. Moses demonstrated that there was 'nothing straight' long before either of them.

9.

Careful observation tends to show that good news invariably follows the left nostril breath-flow.

10.

The Five Senses.

The five senses are physical, and function entirely upon the physical plane to the physical objectives; but the major portion of the human in non-physical, ethereal, and invisible to the physical eye, that is to the sense of vision.

Man is possessed of and possesses an Astral body, which is in close relation to the Astral world. whether he is conscious of it or not. He may scornfully deny this, but he himself will be the first to admit as facts certain phenomena that is totally unexplainable unless this is the case.

Precisely as the five recognised senses cognize his body, do that part of him which is not of the body, and which is equally with the body himself, demands the existence of a sense by which it can be recognised.

The phenomena of motion is not sufficient explanation for the 'Things' beyond the range of the recognised senses. As a matter of fact the existence of a separate entity called by the Masters the Astral body, is no longer open to question, and motion is relegated to its proper position—that of a concept, and added property.

The Occult Law obtains, "As above so below, as below so above".

Fichte from one angle, Drummond from another, attempted to give some explanation of the phenomenon of the spiritual, but had to fall back upon the sense-beyond-the-sense to do so, and then they accomplished little or nothing. Their's was a voyage of discovery without the chart provided by the Master Therion.

The waves of life force which sweep over the universe affect every phase and manifestation of life, whether human or not. Every plant is a miniature world, in which the law obtains as it does in what are said to be higher forms of life. It is known to the horticulturist that flowers are affected by tone and colour, that the vibrations of anger have a distinct and clearly indicated effect upon certain plants, and that thought leaves its mark upon the material petal and fibre.

This is not understood by the material man, and to say this is not to speak to his detriment. The poor fool does not know, though he possesses the knowledge by which he might know if he would. He is possessed of a capacity which he denies even to himself. He possesses a sense, the value of which is in its recognition, and yet he refuses to enter into his kingdom.

Man is material, the religion that is taught to him is material. It is not authoritative; it makes no pretence to authority. It is a changing thing, shaped by the five senses, a pander to the senses, a tool of the senses, which, ostrich like, hides its head in the sand and pretends blindness to that which is palpable to every mind that is not swayed by fear of superstition on the one hand, and that ignorance which is born of non-realisation of the spirit on the other.

The beauty and glory of life does not exist to the man whose conception of life excludes the unseen world. His understanding of himself and his wants is confused, his conception is clouded by the unreality of the things he recognises as real. He cannot comprehend the real because it is to him the unreal. Time and space, the earth and the heavens, the laws by which the universe is governed, so far as man has any understanding of these things, that understanding is based entirely upon the conception of the recognised senses, and is therefore confined to the material. There is no recognised faculty by which the non-material or spiritual may be comprehended except the senses, which are admittedly material in their source and objective, and yet the religions of the hour stress the point that they are of the spiritual, and have a spiritual ultimate.

If there is no Astral condition, if there is no sense other than the five recognised faculties, the structure of immortality cannot hold together and this is precisely the conclusion to which the world has arrived. If there is no relationship between the Astral and the physical, the whole of life is a disconnected series of happenings, each isolated, each beginning and ending in itself, and man is simply a cork tossed about on the sea of his passions, at the mercy of his own ignorance and helplessness.

Vibration functions constantly in all things and it is interpreted and defined according to its speed, wave-length and frequency. By means of the sympathetic Nervous system we are able to receive short-wave high frequency vibrations. By means of the five senses and Physical organs, we can receive long-wave low frequency vibrations.

The skin itself is not the organ of feeling; we do not smell with the nose; we do not hear with the ear; we do not taste with the tongue; we do not see with the eye. Those are  merely the instruments by means of which intellect is able to function in those particular phases we term sense. The actual phenomena of sensation is the process of the interpretation of vibration that occurs in the brain cells.

Hearing is the complete process of analysing sound; sound is manifested through a limited wave-band of vibration frequency; interpretation and analysis occurs in the brain cells especially adapted to function through sound stimuli. So it is with each sense; when the vibratory rate exceeds the frequency of light, we are no longer able to comprehend the phenomenon by the five senses. We get out of the colour range into what is called the short-wave high frequency rates. We register with other faculties.

11.

The Strange Case of the Sensitive Chauffat.

It was in Greek St. Soho that Chauffat fell into a trance which lasted sixteen days. The one armed ex-soldier lived in a room upon the top floor of a restaurant which has ceased to remain such; its specialty was tripe prepared à la mode de Caen. Poor Chauffat, however, had to be content with bouillon, and sometimes I held the little mirror by which a ray of candlelight was directed into his eye, and by this means woke the patient up sufficiently to enable him to swallow the broth from a teaspoon, which he took with a convulsive jerk that affected his whole body. During his trance, doctors, mesmerists, and cranks of every kind attended what were really séances, at which the theory of suggestion was tested with extraordinary results. Under its influence, the man was made to tell a detective the details of a robbery which had been committed on the night of his seizure, and to write to Dr. Charcot, of Paris.

His arm once set in motion would continue swaying backwards and forwards, until a stroke of the finger would make it fall to the man's side. Curiously enough, when Chauffat awoke naturally he was quite dumb and paralysed on one side. When he shook hands with me I asked him if he had ever seen me before, and he shook a vigorous negative, not having had the least idea that I had spoken to him and had been answered by him many times during his protracted sleep.

[Note. I think that this piece, though copied from amongst Crowley's papers, was not by him, the 'I' not being A.C. The original from which it was first copied has been destroyed. Yorke.]

12.

I myself broke the Law by forgiving certain of my enemies and was in consequence severely punished. Every treasure that I had on earth was taken away. Inexplicable are the atrocities which accompanied every step in my initiation. Death dragged away my children with slow savagery; the women I loved drank themselves into delirium and dementia before my eyes.

13.

Hypnotism.

Hypnotism is artificial sleep, which may be produced upon one's self or upon another; and it may be produced by the power of will, by mechanical aid. The mechanisms used are revolving mirrors, bright lights, or anything that will serve to excite the optic nerves, and raise them to a state of vibration which will enable the subject to pass into hypnosis or sleep.

Unnatural stimulation of the nerves of the eyes, or of the nerves at the base of the brain, or by focusing the sight at an angle of forty-five degrees and then gradually raising it until the pupils are turned inward above the upper lids, will produce an abnormal nervous excitation' and while the subject is in this condition he readily accepts the verbal suggestion of sleep, and passes into hypnosis.

In this manner he is forced out of his physical body; is under the control of the operator's mind, and is also exposed to any or all influences upon the subjective plane which he had abnormally invaded.

If the hypnosis is complete, then both minds of the subject are absolutely under the control of the operator; but if the hypnosis be only partial, then nothing but the objective, or lower mind is controlled.

While in this condition, and passive to the will of another, the subject MUST accept as true everything suggested to him by that controlling mind; and whatever command is given to him in sleep, he will obey when he wakes, and without knowing why.

It is strongly contested by the modern hypnotist, especially in France and America, that the mind of the subject is not dominated to the extent of coercion, or beyond the power of the subject to act independently. Cases are cited where subjects refused to stab a man when the operators hand them real daggers and commanded them to do so (as if the subjects could not sense that the command was not really meant).

Other cases are cited where the same subjects were given paper daggers and were told to strike designated persons. This command they obeyed with alacrity; and because they obeyed in the last instances and refused in the first, it was supposed that they could not be coerced to commit a crime against their wills. This of course is absolute nonsense; these cases do not prove the theory advanced, but only shown that both minds of the subjects were not under the control of the operator; and that if they were, the subjects would have obeyed in the first instance as quickly as in the last.

In the East, where men have made a study of the power of mind for hundreds of years, it is taught that NOTHING will prevent a hypnotised subject from obeying the commands of the operator, or controlling mind, when once the subject is fully under his influence.

14.

Science begins to see that the Initiates were maybe not merely silly and selfish in making their rule of silence, and in protecting Philosophy from the profane. Yet still she hopes that the mischief may not prove mortal and begs that things may go on much as usual until that secret session decides on some plan of fashion.

The last fifty years have laid the axe of analysis to the root of every axion. They are triflers who content themselves with lopping the blossoming twigs of our beliefs, of the boughs of our intellectual instruments. We can no longer assert any single proposition, unless we guard ourselves by enumerating countless conditions which must be assumed.

This digression has outstayed its welcome; it was only invited by Wisdom that it might warn Rashness of the dangers that encompass even Sincerity, Energy, and Intelligence, when they happen not to contribute to Fitness-in-their-environment.

15.

The Black Rabbi.

He made a tour of Europe in the 1930's singing folksongs and hymns to large and appreciative congregations in Jewish synagogues. The Falashas, or black jews of Ethiopia claim direct descent from Abraham, and assert that the first Jews had their colour and features, which were very negroid. In 937 A.D. the Falashas, under their queen Judith, seized the throne of Ethiopia and ruled it over 40 years.

16.

The Mistakes of Mankind.

The Errors of Mankind have almost uniformally sprung from the pursuit of false ideals, born of irrational beliefs, and fathered by the ignorance pf Self-distrust. Aware of their own sorry state, men have grasped wildly at every straw of philosophy, have swallowed every glittering bait of falsehood. They have sought to be not what they are, but what they have been persuaded they ought to be, or what they think it would be fine to be; as, in the fable, the frog, on hearing of the ox, blew himself out in emulation till he burst.

17.

Jesu.

'Jesu' in the Hebrew is neither name nor word, but simply three letters or cipher-letters, as if one were to take the letters C.L.U. as ciphers and make the word clu out of them, that is 155. (CLU, Roman cyphers, C 100, L 50, V 5. 155). Thus the Cabbalists call Jesus 316. Such a figure is said to bring about another word which means Nebel Borik.

18.

All kinds of stomach troubles and lung disorders, catarrh, asthma and consumption, are due to a protracted breath-flow of the left nostril daily for months or years, while the flow of the right nostril occurs only occasionally.

19.

Divination.

The regions of Nature in which supernormal events take place are just as much under the domination of law as those which have to do with chemistry or atomic energy. I must admit that even today these regions are imperfectly explored, but have no doubt that they hold many surprises for us. The really intelligent view seems to be that if such events are well authenticated as having transpired, and if they happen at variance with some law we think we understand, there must be some hidden cause in the chain of circumstances concerned which transformed their significance. I will take a testimony of the first Lord Lytton, who as most people know was something of an Occult Adept.

The system of divination which Lord Lytton exploited was known as Geomancy. It would take too long to describe the practical rules of the art, which, as the name implies, has some supposed connection with movements of the earth, but the 'figure' set up to solve any question presented to a geomancist consists of dots or marks irregularly grouped on paper. He reads the significance of these markings according to other rules.

In 1860 Lord Lytton put p such a figure to see what would be the future of Mr. Disraeli, as he was then, and remember the Period was one at which it was still the fashion among Liberals, then predominant in Parliament, to ridicule and despise Disraeli, and long before he had ever been Prime Minister.

Lord Lytton was astonished at the significance of the figure. He recorded it as quite out of keeping with any reasonable expectations. It betokened important advantages from marriage, a peaceful hearth, public honours far beyond anticipation, death ultimately in an exceptionally high position in the midst of general affection and regret.

The subject of the enquiry would bequeath a reputation "quite out of proportion to the opinion now (in 1860) entertained of his intellect even by those who think most highly of it. His enemies, though active, will not be persevering; his official friends, though not ardent, will not minister to his success".

What is the meaning of such cases, which could be multiplied almost indefinitely? To call such a triumph of divination as that just quoted 'coincidence' is the common refuge of idiots. But it is quite unsatisfactory to attribute a correct divination to the chance markings on paper which seem all there is to go by.

The missing factor in the whole transaction is to be found in the all but invariable circumstance that the successful diviners, whatever method they favour, believe in it. The Augurs of old who watched the flight of arrows (belomancy) and the modern water-diviners who use a hazel twig and feel it turn in their hands when they stand over a hidden spring, are in the same way stimulating clairvoyance.

To believe that the future is sealed to us seems equivalent to saying that all future events must be determined by some ruthless destiny beforehand; that if we do idiotic things, or commit crimes, even those acts were inevitable. We seem submerged in this way in the worse aspects of Mohammedan fatalism.

20.

The Old Celtic Church.

There exists a set of people who appear to regard Glastonbury as the centre of the Universe. This is partly a development of the old Celtic Church idea. The people who like this sort of thing have their cranial cavities rather loosely packed with delicately scented cotton wool, and the whole theory is mixed up with calculations about the connection of the Great Pyramid with the war, the Labour Government, demonstrations of the squaring of the circle and the theory that the works of Shakespeare, Greene, Nash, Peele, Dryden, Walt Whitman and others were all written by Francis Bacon, who carelessly omitted to die, and is now living as a count in Hungary.

The above is not to say that these people are not sometimes worthy and serious students after a fashion. The trouble with them is that they have never been trained to think.

21.

Mantra.

A mantra must not be disturbed until it has become subconscious.

22.

The Black Egg.

It is one of the first principles of magic (applied wisdom) to buy the 'black egg' without haggling. It is essentially wrong to try to measure Spiritual values in terms of money or other material substance. If you want to put the thing in a ceremonial way, you must say that if you want the article, you must pay its price and that without arguing whether, from a theoretical point of view this appears dear. On average principles, one might as well sell women by weight, whereas in practice people may often have to pay more for a thin girl than for the largest lady in the market.

23.

We have a right to eat animals, because it is the kindest thing that we can do to them. Thus and only thus can we enable them to fulfil their ambition by building up their tissues into that of a higher organism—that is if any one supposes that any justification is necessary.

24.

The Will and its Instrument.

One should distinguish clearly between Pure Will and its instrument. Every body is limited by his technical abilities. That is one reason why it is so important to perfect a technique of one's own, while at the same time illuminating the instrument altogether from the conception of pure self.

25.

The Wanderer. (Spiritualists)

By the treacherous light of the waning moon, the wanderer stumbles through swamps upon the edge of the black pool of the Abyss, along the winding path beset by the hell-hounds, up barren slopes to where two 'squat turrets' blind as the fool's heart, guard a pass leading he knows not where. His starting point is the illusion of matter, his goal the sphere of external splendour and internal corruption. It is the essence of error. On this path there is no creative energy to fertilise the ova, no light to purify and vitalise their possibilities. It is the path of witchcraft. The Great Work is not accomplished. The postulant is not the ecstatic bride who knows that she will be endowed from on high with the great grace of motherhood—but the hag who clutches at the false gratifications of hysteria. Instead of the human consciousness being thrilled directly by the pure light of its one lord, the animal sensorium is agitated by the confused jabberings of those demons who personate great souls, human or divine.

26.

Thinking.

The majority of persons do not think they merely dream. People think they think, but in point of fact they jump about from one subject to another as a bird flits from one branch of a tree to another. There is no logical sequence in their thought. There is no continuity. Many people think of words, not of concepts, or of concrete mental things: and this is sometimes true even with persons who are called scientific. What concept do most persons have of Love, Force, Mind, Thought? If these words mean anything then these are things. It is possible to have thoughts without words, and this kind of thinking is the mental-picture making, or concrete thought which is the real creative thought. Careless thinking has very little or no results, while concrete thought has absolute, mathematical results.

27.

The Circle.

Quite rightly the Masters hold the 'circle' to be God's favourite means of creative expression. A circle is an infinite figure, so involved in itself that admits no beginning or end. A circle is a perfect and capacious figure; it holds and contains the most of any figure. The circle of Heaven is equally distant from the point and centre of the earth.

28.

Vegetarianism.

It is a fact, surely worthy of some consideration, that in the rural parts of Italy and Spain scarcely any meat is eaten. Yet it is in precisely these regions that crimes of violence and passion are notoriously common. Our strict vegetarian fanatics appear to have been ill-advised in their choice of authorities.

According to his own disciples, Buddha died in a fit of indigestion brought on by eating too much pork. Pythagoras barred not meat but beans. If the rank and file of the Roman army were forced to subsist on vegetables , it is on record that their high officers had reserved for them the best diet—the meat diet. While the Brahmins—the thinkers and leaders of the Hindus—feasted right royally on sacrificial meat, their dupes existed on a strict vegetable diet.

Of all arguments for vegetarianism, none is so weak as the argument from humanity. The pig has a stronger interest than anyone in the demand for bacon. If all the world were Jewish, there would be no pigs at all. He has to pay for his privileges by an early death, but he makes a good bargain out of it—a good sty and plenty to eat every day of his life.

29.

First Causes.

First causes in nature are twain, in unity, they are but one. They are the same, yet they are different, their differences being both subtle and complex. They are equal in power, yet their perfect cooperation is the cause of all the inequalities observable in Space, Matter, Life and Time. They are wholly good, yet the laws of their mutual action create both Good and Evil. They are the creators of sex in species, being the prototypes of male and female, but in themselves they are neuter, as the bee or the amoeba, except in regard to qualities of power.

30.

Egyptian Theory.

The Sperm penetrates and enters the Ovum and Conception occurs. The fusion of the Male and Female cells causes a new cell to form. This cell contains all the characteristics of both father and mother, and an individuality of its own—Three persons in one—the Trinity.

The ancient Egyptian priests believed in the Duality of the World, which was derived from two incomplete names or syllables, the Ba and the Khu. These stood for the celestial life stream that flowed through the Phallus of Ra and the Uterus of Isis, and also through the sex organs of both Male and Female, animal or human. When the two streams or parts of the Word unite, the Word is completed, and after the period of gestation, It becomes manifest in the Flesh.

The Sperm can travel one inch in ten minutes in the liquids of the womb, and survive, and impregnate for at least ten days after reception.

The Ba was the name given by the Priests of Isis to the generative essence of man, this essence was known by the Crafty Priests to be the Saviour of mankind; but alone the Ba or Redeemer could not save Itself, it must be ejected from the Human Temple, and be buried, and rise in a new body.

This was the drama portrayed in the Egyptian Mysteries. In Blue Lodge Masonry it is symbolised in the Master's degree by the Ceremony of Raising. The candidate is struck on the forehead and knocked to the ground, where he simulates Death; he is raised by the Master and the two Wardens.

The female principle which enables the Ba to be born again so that we may live was named the Khu over five thousand years ago.

In the Christian Mysteries, a Lamb was the symbol of the Ba.

31.

Cabalistic Theory.

A river went out from Eden to water the Garden and was parted into four heads, Pison, Gideon, Hiddekel and the Euphrates. The head is Eden, and the body is the garden. The river that goes out of Eden begins at the mouth, and ends at the stomache. From here it is parted into four hears which are Pison the urinary system; Gideon the digestive system; Hiddekel the circulatory system; and Euphrates the life current.

Now you have one river that parts into four heads. On either side of the river was the Tree of Life. What river? Pison.

Does not the male and female possess the right and left organs? And are they not upon either side of the river? And are they not the Tree of Life?

The above secret instructions are based on the following:—

"He showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal proceeding from the throne of God and the Lamb, and in the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river was there the Tree of Life, which bore twelve manner of fruit, and yielded her fruit every month".

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