image of a person standing next to a rushing train, unicursal hexagram over their head, radiating them

Slow down! Preparing for communion.

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image of a person standing next to a rushing train, unicursal hexagram over their head, radiating them

Aleister Crowley mentions three ways in which a person should prepare to receive the sacrament of the Eucharist: chastity, fasting, and continual aspiration.

With regard to the preparations for such Sacraments, the Catholic Church has maintained well enough the traditions of the true Gnostic Church in whose keeping the secrets are. Chastity is a condition; fasting for some hours previous is a condition; an earnest and continual aspiration is a condition. Without these antecedents even the Eucharist of the One and Seven is partially—though such is its intrinsic virtue that it can never be wholly—baulked of its effect.

Magick in Theory and Practice, Chapter 20

Presumably these preparations should be undertaken not only by the clergy consecrating the Eucharist but also Gnostic Mass congregants.

The preconditions of fasting and aspiration are unambiguous, but chastity requires some explanation. In the same passage, Crowley goes on to mention that:

The Word Chastity is used by initiates to signify a certain state of soul and of mind determinant of a certain habit of body which is nowise identical with what is commonly understood. Chastity in the true magical sense of the word is inconceivable to those who are not wholly emancipated from the obsession of sex.

While Crowley does not further specify the meaning of chastity in this context, he likely means that the act is done for the sake of Nuit and without lust of result.

Also, take your fill and will of love as ye will, when, where and with whom ye will! But always unto me. If this be not aright; if ye confound the space-marks, saying: They are one; or saying, They are many; if the ritual be not ever unto me: then expect the direful judgments of Ra Hoor Khuit!

AL I.51-52

But remember, o chosen one, to be me; to follow the love of Nu in the star-lit heaven; to look forth upon men, to tell them this glad word.

AL II.76

The Old Comment to the first verse of the Book of the Law states:

In Nu is Had concealed; by Had is Nu manifested. Nu being 56 and Had 9, their conjunction results in 65, Adonai, the Holy Guardian Angel.

And so another way of stating the same thing is to say that the consummation or consumption of the Eucharist ought to be done with one-pointed devotion to the Holy Guardian Angel, insofar as the aspirant is able to do this.

These three prerequisites of chastity, fasting, and continual aspiration bear a close resemblance with the principles represented by the chain, the dagger, and the scourge.

The chain represents fixity of thought. It corresponds with chastity or singular devotion to Nuit.

The dagger represents control of the appetites which would distract thought. It corresponds with fasting.

The scourge is meant to counteract the torpor of the Nephesh or animal soul. It corresponds with continual aspiration.

After applying the chain, dagger, and scourge to oneself, the magician then anoints themselves with the Holy Oil, symbolic of “that spark of the higher in the Magician which wishes to unite the lower with itself.” (Magick, Part II, Chapter V.) Once the principles represented by the chain, the dagger, and the scourge have been applied to oneself and are in balance with one another, the light of Jechidah or the Holy Guardian Angel naturally breaks through.

These three factors of magick form a close parallel with three factors of sama-samādhi or jhāna (Sanskrit: dhyāna) mentioned in the Buddhist tradition.

The first factor of concentration is mindfulness (sati). This is often interpreted nowadays as bare, non-judgmental awareness of the present moment, but in the context of the Buddha’s teachings, its meaning is much closer to the colloquial meaning of the term. It means keeping in mind what you’re doing. In the context of taking Eucharist, it could mean an appropriate attitude of reverence, knowing that the purpose of this ritual is communion with the divine. It corresponds with the chain and with chastity.

The second factor is alertness (sampajañña). This is the ability of the mind to be aware of what it is doing and to know the difference between path and not path. It is a discriminating faculty, and therefore it corresponds with the dagger and with fasting.

The third factor is ardency (atappa). It means being intent on what you are doing. It does not mean straining but rather continuously developing helpful skills and habits and (with the help of alertness) abandoning unhelpful ones. It corresponds with the scourge and with continual aspiration.

When these three factors join together in a meditation session and are more or less in balance with one another, right concentration naturally arises. This corresponds with the holy oil and the natural way in which the Jechidah or Holy Guardian Angel unites the aspirant with itself.

four-sided pyramid representing the way in which chastity/mindfulness, fasting/attentiveness, and aspiration/ardency work together to support dedication/concentration.

As we can see, these three prerequisites of chastity, fasting, and continual aspiration form a foundation for the consummation and consumption of a Eucharist, but they are derived from principles which are more general and which apply to any practice of magick or meditation.

This seems complicated, but putting it together is easier than it seems.

Know what it is that you are doing and why. Prior to showing up to the temple, know that you will attend a ritual, the purpose of which is to put you in communion with the Highest: whether you consider that to be Nuit, Babalon, Pan, Jechidah, or the Holy Guardian Angel.

Know that this highest spiritual power is also the source and seed of Thelema itself. It is the power articulated in the Book of the Law, and it is the power that inspired the author of the ritual, Aleister Crowley, when he wrote the ritual.

Let fasting and continual aspiration support this knowledge. If you choose to fast beforehand, know that this action creates physical space within you where the Word embodied in the Eucharist may take root. Know that your desire to know God and your attention to the Path is the nourishment that supports the growth of this knowledge—before, during, and long after the ritual itself.

After you have consumed the Eucharist and have declared, “There is no part of me that is not of the gods!,” return to your seat and sit in silent contemplation, just as the Priest did immediately after consuming his Eucharist. Enjoy communion with this silence directly and simply as possible.

Do not worry. Do not plan. Do not strive. Simply be with the silence.

And as you go about your day—afterward during fellowship, on the drive or bus ride home, when you are going to sleep that evening, or when you are hard at work the following day—remember that silence and return to it. Know it and be with it.

And know with confidence that, “To a Magician thus renewed the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel becomes an inevitable task.”

silhoutte of a person saluting the sun with a unicursal hexagram superimposed over the top

Another reason to practice Liber Resh

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silhoutte of a person saluting the sun with a unicursal hexagram superimposed over the top

In the Platonic tradition, the Sun is a symbol of unity. It is the visible and sensible analog of the One Itself which gives unity in the purely intelligible realm. This One Itself transcends being and non-being. In fact it transcends all opposition whatsoever and is the sole cause of anything being whatever it is. For this reason it is also called the Good Itself.

The equivalent of the One in Thelema is Kether, which is also associated with Ra-Hoor-Khuit. Speaking in the 1st Aethyr of The Vision and the Voice, Ra-Hoor-Khuit declares:

I am light, and I am night, and I am that which is beyond them.

I am speech, and I am silence, and I am that which is beyond them.

I am life, and I am death, and I am that which is beyond them.

I am war, and I am peace, and I am that which is beyond them.

I am weakness, and I am strength, and I am that which is beyond them.

Yet by none of these can man reach up to me. Yet by each of them must man reach up to me.

The unity of opposites represented by Ra-Hoor-Khuit transcends both our capacity of reasoning as well as our capacities of sensation or intuition. Nevertheless, the Sun serves as a visual analog of this transcendent principle, much as it did for the Platonists. Thus four times a day, Thelemites turn toward the Sun and cry aloud:

Unity uttermost showed!

It is necessary to put ourselves into contact with transcendent unity, because as conditioned beings, we do not contain unity within ourselves.

Everything that we are or could even know—about ourselves or about the world—falls into five “heaps” or khandhas. We know by means of sensible impressions (rupa); the pleasure, displeasure, or boredom arising from them (vedana); perceptions (samjna); habituated tendencies (sankhara); and consciousness (vijnana). Each of these arises and passes beyond our control. Insofar as any of these abide for awhile, they change constantly. Therefore they are unreliable, and none can be said to be a self, to contain a self, to be under the control of a self, or to be in a self. None can provide lasting happiness. Even consciousness comes and goes throughout the day, when we fall asleep, or when we die.

For this reason, Crowley declared that the principle of unity of each person—as represented by their spiritual Sun, their Holy Guardian Angel—could not be found by means of introspection.

Apart from any theoretical speculation, my Sammasiti and analytical work has never led to so much as a hint of the existence of the Guardian Angel. He is not to be found by any exploration of oneself.

Magick without Tears, Chapter 43

And yet achieving unity is the preeminent goal of Thelemic ethics.

A Man whose conscious will is at odds with his True Will is wasting his strength. He cannot hope to influence his environment efficiently.

(Illustration: When Civil War rages in a nation, it is in no condition to undertake the invasion of other countries. A man with cancer employs his nourishment alike to his own use and to that of the enemy which is part of himself. He soon fails to resist the pressure of his environment. In practical life, a man who is doing what his conscience tells him to be wrong will do it very clumsily. At first!)

Magick in Theory and Practice, Introduction

Therefore turning toward the Sun four times a day is not a mere religious observance. It serves an important spiritual and ethical purpose.

By turning toward the Sun, we first admit that unity is not automatically present within us. As far as we have come in life, we still have work to do on ourselves. The process is continual. We can always improve.

Second, we recognize that the principle of unity—hence the principle of self-subsistence and enduring happiness—transcends who we ordinarily take ourselves to be. We recognize that when we identify with the skandhas, we’re like a person trying to build a house on quicksand.

Thelemites sometimes talk about the difference between the small-s self, which we identify with our egos, versus the big-s Self, which we identify with Jechidah or the Holy Guardian Angel. In fact there is only one self to speak of, since what we call “self” (with the small-s) is merely an illusion. When we turn toward the Sun, we allow its radiance to dispel this illusion all together, so that our entire being can enjoy contact with that which truly deserves to be called self.

He is the Open Eye of the exalted Sun, before whom all shadows flee away: also that Secret Eye which makes an image of its God, the Light, and gives it power to utter oracles, enlightening the mind.

Magick in Theory and Practice, Chapter 5

I adore the might of Thy breath,
Supreme and terrible God,
Who makest the gods and death
To tremble before Thee—I, I adore thee!

AL III.37

And then finally, having recognized the true source of unity beyond becoming, beyond opposition, we learn to surrender ourselves to it. Gradually we come to see ourselves as instruments or extensions of it. The more frequently we reestablish conscious contact with this spiritual unity or Jechidah, the easier and more habitual it is for us to find that lifeline and source of spiritual power in difficult times. We learn to tolerate misfortune with equanimity, knowing that even in the darkest hour, a radiant god stands at our backs.

And should we follow that lifeline back to its source, any one of us can pass through that “secret door / Into the house of Ra and Tum, of Khephra and of Ahathoor” and attain to direct awareness of that “center and secret of the Sun” which Crowley himself knew in his most exalted visions.

The Power Behind the Mass

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My talk on Eucharistic magick is online now. It includes an in depth analysis of Sections VI-VIII of Liber XV: The Gnostic Mass.

The claim I make about the Mass—if I were to state it as succinctly as possible—is that the Mass was intended, in part, to bring into physical manifestation the spiritual power which was the source of the Book of the Law. So you can profitably view it as an attempt to bring the spiritual force of Thelema into the world by means of a public religious rite.

On the one hand, there’s nothing new or terribly controversial in such a statement. The Gnostic Mass is clearly a religious rite, and the purpose of a religious rite is for clergy to administer certain ideas, values, or virtues to a congregation. It would be rather odd to make the opposite argument, that Aleister Crowley created a religious service that administered the virtues of some spirituality other than Thelema.

I think what’s bound to make my argument controversial is the specificity of it. I don’t treat the power or spiritual potency from an abstract point of view. I show how Crowley specified it, put names to it, and even described its nature. If you accept the premises and the inferences to the conclusions from those premises, this creates a backstop for what is going to count as a good interpretation of the Mass. (Or it brings whatever existing backstop there is closer to the home plate.)

Considering the Mass alone, Crowley has many names for this spiritual potency or power considered in and of itself:

  • “one secret and ineffable LORD”
  • “our Lord …”
  • “the LORD” (symbolized by the priest’s serpent crown)
  • “O secret of secrets that art hidden in the being of all that lives”
  • “the flame that burns in every heart of man, and in the core of every star”
  • “Life, and the giver of Life”
  • “Lord secret and most holy, source of light, source of life, source of love, source of liberty”
  • “force of energy, fire of motion”
  • “Thou who art I, beyond all I am, Who hast no nature and no name”
  • “center and secret of the Sun”
  • “hidden spring of all things known and unknown, Thou aloof, alone”
  • “true fire within the reed”
  • “source and seed of life, love, liberty, and light, thou beyond speech and beyond sight”
  • “One in Three … Three in One”

What we can gather from these terms is that there is a divinity or a portion of divinity that is secret, ineffable, withdrawn, unmanifest, and completely transcendent. It is beyond our ability to describe or understand it. It is characterized by silence, but it is the source of speech and motion. And this divinity or some aspect of this divinity is concealed “within us” in some sense, and it is responsibility for our vitality.

Now one thing you may want to ponder from a theological or metaphysical perspective is this: If something is truly transcendent and unmanifest—if it is really “aloof, alone”—then how does it enter into manifestation? How does it have anything to do with the visible or manifest universe at all?

Crowley’s phrase for this in the context of the Mass, exemplified in the Creed, is the “Miracle of Incarnation”. He claims it is accomplished by means of the “Baptism of Wisdom”. As Sabazius has pointed out, this comes from Van Hammer’s elucidation of the name Baphomet as Baphe-Metis, the Baptism of Wisdom. One of the arguments I make in the talk is that, in the context of the Mass, Baphomet is the name given to this pure, transcendent spiritual potency when it is embodied or incarnated. This means that we can understand the Epiklesis of the Gnostic Mass on analogy with the transubstantiation of the Eucharist in the Roman Mass into the body and blood of Christ. This helps make sense of why the elements of the Eucharist are consecrated into a resurrection structure in Section VI. As Christ is the principle of resurrection in Christianity, Baphomet is the principle of resurrection in Thelema. At that point, the doctrines diverge, and I spend a lot of time in the talk examining exactly what resurrection means in a Thelemic context.

One angle I did not explore very much at all in my talk is how this transcendent spiritual potency is made manifest by the sex instinct. The only reference I made to this extraordinarily complex and interesting subject was to point out that the Priest, by virtue of the Lance and the scarlet robe, represents the microcosmic deity in the context of the Mass. This microcosmic deity is called “CHAOS, the sole viceregent of the Sun upon the Earth.” It is also called phallus. It is the “Lord of Life and Joy, that art the might of man, that art the essence of every true god that is upon the surface of the Earth, continuing knowledge from generation unto generation”. The magick of the Mass is almost certainly intended to parallel an analogous sex magick working. The seed (sperma) the Priest isolates from the Cake (consecrated to his body) is meant to be analogous with the spermatazoon produced by his literal body. The cup is magically linked with the Priestess’s body by means of the five crosses. The wine within it could be viewed as either his “blood” (which Crowley usually intends to represent semen) or her menstruum. I pointed out, as many have, that HRILIU represents the cry of orgasm.

Another thing I would point out—which I didn’t bother to touch on in the talk—is that Crowley believed sexual reproduction was a form of resurrection. Orgasm itself is a moment of subject-object union or samadhi, if only for a moment. The individuality of the man is not preserved, but his life-force continues in the child. The Mass Eucharist is explicitly referred to as a child both in the Anthem and during the Fractio. The solve or Aleph-phase of the operation reduces his seed to a kind of magical stem-cell state. By consuming this metaphorical “child,” the Priest is nourishing himself with the power of his resurrected or reborn life-force. It’s a simple way to look at the Mass, but it’s also perfectly valid and illuminating. The problem is that it’s not the only doctrine of resurrection Crowley had.

While I do not think it is wrong to point out that the Mass is the IX° sex magick operation under a different form, I think it very quickly leads to misunderstanding. One could start to believe that the spiritual reality of the Mass—and maybe of Thelema itself—is exhausted in fucking. Crowley himself makes reductionistic claims to this effect, e.g., “Semen is God.” Instead I wanted to focus on the structure shared both by the Mass and by the IX° Mass of the Holy Ghost in order to indicate the spiritual reality they are both aiming at, and which is reducible to neither of them. In the language of Eucharistic magick Crowley uses, both the Eucharist of two elements and the Eucharist of one element serve a common spiritual purpose. It is that purpose that I wanted to elucidate.

The argument I make in the talk—and which I have not seen made before—is that the spiritual purpose is the physical manifestation of this spiritual principle or potency represented by Hoor-Paar-Kraat, the God of Silence. This is the deity that Aiwass declares himself to be the “minister” of in the first chapter of The Book of the Law. As such, Aiwass’s speech is the speech of the god of silence. The Book of the Law itself is the “speech of silence” as Crowley says. And since this is the same spiritual potency we are embodying in the Gnostic Mass Eucharist, when we participate in the Mass, either as clergy or as congregants, we are in effect consuming the word. We’re being nourished by it. In yet one more way, the Book of the Law is becoming our sustenance and comfort.

As it turns out, the same principle is elastic and can manifest itself in many other ways. I already mentioned that it manifests as a sex-generative principle. In the talk I make a big deal out of showing how, in the context of an individual’s gnosis or spiritual experience, Harpocrates is also the Silent Self or the Holy Guardian Angel. From an alchemical perspective, I show how it is also the Philosopher’s Stone and connected with the IX° Elixir of Life. Crowley uses a lot of words to label this spiritual principle—Aleph, Fool, God of Silence, Holy Guardian Angel, Heru-Ra-Ha, Lord Most Secret, etc.—but the fact that it shows up in so many different places and is linked with the central spiritual concerns of Thelema I think justifies calling it out as the central organizing principle of Crowley’s spirituality. It is the point around which everything else is rotating. So I spend a lot of time in the talk laying out its structure. That structure—whether we’re talking about Eucharistic magick, alchemy, or initiation—is invariably tripartite and is represented by the formula IAO.

So what I was attempting to do in this talk was not only to show how to do Eucharistic magick or just parrot things Crowley says about the Eucharist. I also wanted to explain how it was he could make such extraordinary claims about Eucharistic magick, such that doing it would inevitably lead to Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, or that a particular version of it (identical with the IX° secret) would produce the Elixir of Life and grant immortality. So in this one phenomenon of Eucharistic magick, we find a menagerie of traditional and specifically Crowleyan spiritual concerns tied to the central mystery of Crowley’s spirituality, namely, Knowledge and Conversation. But rather than attempt to reduce the Gnostic Mass to sex magick, or to attempt to reduce both of those to Knowledge and Conversation, I attempted to explain all three in terms of the structure of the underlying spiritual reality motivating Thelema as a whole. And I suppose my assumption is that, because this underlying spiritual reality has vitality, an individual who understands how to make contact with that reality will become empowered by it.

The Concept of “God” in Thelema

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Now the multiplying of the infinitely great by the infinitely small results in SOME UNKNOWN FINITE NUMBER EXTENDED IN AN UNKNOWN NUMBER OF CATEGORIES. It happened, when this our Great inversion took place, from the essence of all nothingness to finity extended in innumerable categories, that an incalculably vast system was produced. Merely by chance, chance in the truest sense of the term, we are found with gods, men, stars, planets, devils, colors, forces, and all the materials of the Cosmos: and with time, space, and causality, the conditions limiting and involving them all.

— Berashith: An Essay in Ontology

Infinite space is called the goddess NUIT, while the infinitely small and atomic yet omnipresent point is called HADIT. These are unmanifest. One conjunction of these infinites is called RA-HOOR-KHUIT (more correctly, HERU-RA-HA, to include HOOR-PAAR-KRAAT), a unity which includes and heads all things.

—Magick in Theory and Practice, Chapter 0

In the Ontology of the New Aeon, whose prime theorem is 0 = 2, Kether exists only as the Child of any Marriage of one particular Hadit with one particular aspect of Nuit. There are thus as many Kethers as there are positive possibilities. More, Kether is not in any case a sole Unity, for each Marriage produces a Twin, ה + י = ה + ו. There is a positive “Third Being”, a Kether; and there is an Ecstasy, or dissolution into Nothing, by the same Event. One is the Magical, the other the Mystical, Result of an Act of Love under Will.

—The Vision and the Voice, Cry of the 21st Aethyr

So then, if Nothing is to be really the absolute Nothing, we mean that Nothing does not enter into the category of existence. To say that absolute Nothing exists is equivalent to saying that everything exists which exists, and the great Hebrew sages of old time noted this fact by giving it the title of the supreme idea of reality (behind their tribal God, Jehovah, who, as we have previously shown, is merely the Yoga of the 4 Elements, even at his highest,—the Demiourgos) Eheieh-Asher-Eheieh,—I am that I am … But all these go back to the still older cosmogony of the ancient Egyptians, where we have Nuit, Space, Hadit, the point of view; these experience congress, and so produce Heru-Ra-Ha, who combines the ideas of Ra-Hoor-Khuit and Hoor-paar-Kraat. These are the same twin Vau and He’ final which we know. Here is evidently the origin of the system of the Tree of Life.

—Eight Lectures on Yoga, Yoga for Yellowbellies, Second Lecture

Finality; things as they are in their totality. AHYHWH, the combined AHYH and YHVH, Macroprosopus and Microprosopus, is here. If we supposed the 3 female letters H to conceal the 3 mothers A, M, Sh, we obtain the number 358, Messiach.

—An Essay Upon Number

But IHVH, the Tetragrammaton, as we shall presently see, contains all the Sephiroth with the exception of Kether, and specially signifies the Lesser Countenance, Microprosopus, the King of the qabalistical Sephirotic greatest Trinity, and the Son in His human incarnation, in the Christian acceptation of the Trinity. Therefore, as the Son reveals the Father, so does IHVH, Jehovah, reveal AHIH, Eheieh.

—The Temple of Solomon the King, Part V

I am God, I very God of very God; I go upon my way to work my Will; I have made Matter and Motion for my mirror; I have decreed for my delight that Nothingness should figure itself as twain, that I might dream a dance of names and natures, and enjoy the substance of simplicity by watching the wanderings of my shadows. I am not that which is not; I know not that which knows not; I love not that which loves not. For I am Love, whereby division dies in delight; I am Knowledge, whereby all parts, plunged in the whole, perish and pass into perfection; and I am that I am, the being wherein Being is lost in Nothing, nor designs to be but its Will to unfold its nature, its need to express its perfection in all possibilities, each phase a partial phantasm, and yet inevitable and absolute.

—Liber V vel Reguli

He identifies his Angel with the Ain Soph, and the Kether thereof; one formulation of Hadit in the boundless Body of Nuith.

—Liber Samekh, Point II, Section A

Harpocrates and the Gnostic Mass

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Harpocrates occupies an ambiguous spot in Thelemic theology. On the one hand, he is Aleph or Kether: spirit in its most transcendent form. On the other hand, he is Heh-final or Malkuth: spirit in Assiah. Kether is in Malkuth and vice versa—As Above, So Below, etc.

Kether is the “Child” of Nuit and any Hadit. “Nu being 56 and Had 9, their conjunction results in 65, Adonai, the Holy Guardian Angel.” (Old Comment on AL I.1)

In Liber LXV, V:65, we read:

So also is the end of the book, and the Lord Adonai is about it on all sides like a Thunderbolt, and a Pylon, and a Snake, and a Phallus, and in the midst thereof he is like the Woman that jetteth out the milk of the stars from her paps; yea, the milk of the stars from her paps.

Thus we may attribute each of the four elements to a letter of the formula ADNI in the following fashion:

Aleph = Air
Daleth = Fire
Nun = Water
Yod = Earth

If we assign these counterclockwise starting in the east, we get the usual attributions from the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram.

If we place Heh-final (Harpocrates) in the midst thereof, we get a pentagrammaton enumerating to 70, the value of Ayin, which is attributed to the Lord of the Gates of Matter, the Devil, and Baphomet. (See Gunther, Initiation in the Aeon of the Child (2009), p.152.) This matches with Crowley’s claim in The Book of Thoth that, “There is no doubt that this mysterious figure [Baphomet] is a magical image of this same idea [embodied in figures like the Fool and Harpocrates].”

Thus we might think of Baphomet (the “product” of the Gnostic Mass) as the form taken by the Holy Guardian Angel in Malkuth or perhaps in Assiah.

There is some further justification for this idea in Magick in Theory and Practice, Chapter V:

The first process is to find the I in the V — initiation, purification, finding the Secret Root of oneself, the epicene Virgin who is 10 (Malkuth) but spelt in full 20 (Jupiter).

This Yod in the “Virgin” expands to the Babe in the Egg by formulating the Secret Wisdom of Truth of Hermes in the Silence of the Fool. He acquires the Eye-Wand, beholding the acting and being adored. The Inverted Pentagram — Baphomet — the Hermaphrodite fully grown — begets himself on himself as V again.

If the particle the Priest breaks off the bread is I, Yod, or his Secret Root, then putting it in the cup of wine (“the essence of the joy of the Earth” or Malkuth) would be equivalent to creating the “Yod in the ‘Virgin'”. And indeed, this is the very process Crowley describes as leading to the formation or expression of this Yod as Baphomet.

Interestingly the colors attributed to spirit in Assiah are red, blue, yellow, black, and white, the colors worn by the five officers of the Gnostic Mass.

This is another way in which the Gnostic Mass can be seen as an invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel on the material plane (i.e., in a physical talisman like the Eucharist).

lamen of OTO depicting a dove descending into a flaming cup from an eye in the triangle

The Symbolism of the O.T.O. Lamen

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lamen of OTO depicting a dove descending into a flaming cup from an eye in the triangle

I spent a lot of time this weekend contemplating the lamen of O.T.O. (I was at a Kaaba Colloquium and seated much of the time in front of the podium.) It gave me some time to think about the symbols that appear in it.

One of the things that really struck me is how much symbolism of the Anahata chakra there is in the cup at the bottom of the sigil. The rose in the cup has two rows of six petals. The Anahata chakra is often represented as a lotus flower with twelve petals.

depiction of the anahata chakra as a lotus of 12 petals

In the center of the rose is a flaming heart. The Anahata chakra is located in the center of the chest and is referred to the heart.

In Liber 777 column CXVIII, “Anahata (Heart)” is assigned to keys 4, 5, and 6, the Sephiroth Chesed, Geburah, and Tiphareth. Tiphareth is the 6th Sephira, and there are two rows of six petals each in the cup. In the center of the heart in the center of the rose, we see the cross. The mysteries of the Rose and the Cross are also associated with Tiphareth.

These three Sephiroth—Chesed, Geburah, and Tiphareth—form a downward pointing triangle, the interconnecting paths of which (Teth, Lamed, and Yod) add up to 49. The number 49 has a few occult meanings in Thelema. For example 49 is 72. Seven 7s appear in the sigil of A∴A∴. See also The Book of Lies, Chapter 49, where it is associated directly with Babalon.

This triad is also called “The Second Triad which is GOD” in Book of Lies chapter 0. The Tiphareth portion in particular is God in manifestation or Microprosopus, which we will return to later.

It’s also in this connection worth pointing out that the triangle formed by connecting Chesed, Geburah, and Tiphareth has the shape of a cup. This further strengthens its connection with Babalon and by extension the Priestess in the Gnostic Mass who fulfills the office of Babalon.

This grail of Babalon is also associated with Cheth, Cancer, and the number 69. In chapter 69 of The Book of Lies, we see this number associated with the Heavenly Hexagram, which we will return to shortly.

Switching focus to the Eye in the Triangle, we might associate it with the supernal triad of Kether, Chokmah, and Binah. They form a triangle whose interconnecting paths (Aleph, Beth, and Daleth) also add up to 7.

The eye itself can be thought of as the Eye of the Father, Horus. So while the lower portion of the lamen might be referred to the Priestess (by means of Babalon and the cup), the upper portion may be referred to the Priest.

The eye is also linked to the path of Ayin (which means “eye”). Like Cheth, Ayin also contains masculine and feminine archetypes, being associated with the hermaphroditic Baphomet. Neither the lamen of O.T.O. nor the offices of the Gnostic Mass imply strict gender dualities. This is in keeping with Crowley’s assertion in The Book of Thoth that

At first sight it would appear that the formula [of tetragrammaton] is the union of the extremely masculine, the big blond beast, with the extremely feminine, the princess who could not sleep if there was a pea beneath her seven feather beds. But all such symbolism defeats itself; the soft becomes the hard, the rough the smooth. The deeper one goes into the formula, the closer becomes the identification of the Opposites. The Dove is the bird of Venus, but the dove is also a symbol of the Holy Ghost; that is, of the Phallus in its most sublimated form. There is therefore no reason for surprise in observing the identification of the father with the mother.

We will return to his passage and the symbolism of the dove shortly.

The addition of Ayin (70) to the triangle itself (7) gives us 77, which has some significance in the context of O.T.O. being the enumeration of OZ, a goat.

So what we see in the two extremes of the lamen are the supernal triad of Kether, Chokmah, and Binah opposed to the triad of Chesed, Geburah, and Tiphareth. While the upper triangle refers to an active masculine-feminine (Ayin, OZ, the goat), the bottom triad refers to a passive masculine-feminine (Babalon, who receives every drop of blood in her cup). What about the dove between the two of them, seen descending from the Eye in the Triangle into the cup?

The dove has lots of significance loaded into it. By column XXXVIII in Liber 777, it is associated with the path of Daleth. The dove would then signify the divine love uniting the active masculine-feminine magical pole of the Priest (in his role as Chaos or Yod tetragrammaton) with the passive masculine-feminine magical extreme of the Priestess (in her role as Babalon or Heh tetragramaton). This unification occurs at the HRILIU moment of the Gnostic Mass. According to Liber 418, HRILIU is the “shrill scream of orgasm”. In The Heart of the Master it is described as “The Voice of the Dove”.

The dove is also symbolic of the Holy Spirit. (See Matthew 3:16, Mark 1:10, Luke 3:22, and John 1:32.) This same equation between the dove and the Holy Spirit shows up in the Anthem of the Mass. (“Glory and worship in the highest, Thou Dove, mankind that deifiest”) (This analysis is extended here.) Like the two extremes of the lamen, it is a symbol containing both male and female aspects.

For of the Father and the Son
The Holy Spirit is the norm;
Male-female, quintessential, one,
Man-being veiled in Woman-form.

Crowley extends the analysis in the passage from the Book of Thoth quoted above when he says, “The Dove is the bird of Venus, but the dove is also a symbol of the Holy Ghost; that is, of the Phallus in its most sublimated form.”

So we can think of the dove not only as the divine love uniting the supernal father with the supernal mother, but also as the male-female creative force or word of the Father—his seed or sperma—transmitted into the womb of the Mother. This is reflected in the Mass when, breaking a particle off of the host and elevating it, the Priest declares, “TOUTO ESTI TO SPERMA MOU. HO PATÊR ESTIN HO HUIOS DIA TO PNEUMA HAGION.” (“This is my Seed. The Father is the Son through the Holy Spirit.”)

As I have shown previously, the particle of bread represents the Iota, Yod, or “Secret Seed” of the Priest himself. It is identical with the Lord Secret and Most Holy of the Mass, whose office is represented by the serpent crown. When this seed is depressed into the cup, it becomes the Holy Spirit, Harpocrates, the Babe in the Egg, the creative breath, all of which are captured in the symbol of the dove. But just as importantly, Harpocrates or the Secret Self is also the Holy Guardian Angel.

This is an important point of doctrine for our Church, as the Holy Spirit of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica is not the Holy Spirit of Christianity. Rather, it is a symbol of the Holy Guardian Angel of each person.

This interpretation is supported if we extend the Tree of Life symbolism implicit in the lamen. If the Eye in the Triangle represents the supernal triad of Kether, Chokmah, and Binah, and if the flaming cup represents the triangle of Chesed, Geburah, and Tiphareth, then the path connecting the two of them, by means of which the dove descends, would be Gimel. Of this path, Crowley, in The Book of Lies chapter 42, says:

The Masters of the Temple … come from the Great Sea, Binah, the City of the Pyramids. V.V.V.V.V. is indicated as one of these travelers; He is described as a camel … because “camel” is in Hebrew Gimel, and Gimel is the path leading from Tiphareth to Kether, uniting Microprosopus and Macroprosopus, i.e., performing the Great Work. The card Gimel in the Tarot is the High Priestess, the Lady of Initiation; one might even say, the Holy Guardian Angel.

upper portion of the tree of life showing gimel connecting the supernal triad with the triad of god-man

In this passage we have Crowley linking the path of Gimel not only with V.V.V.V.V. but also with the Holy Guardian Angel and the initiator. S/he (again, we see the masculine and feminine combined) is the One who mediates between the divine individual (microprosopus) and the supernal divine (macroprosopus), thereby enabling the candidate to perform the Great Work. This is the upward path, the Path of Return described in “One Star in Sight,” whereby the Son (the Angel) sets the Daughter (the aspirant) on the throne of the Mother (Binah).

But in the symbolism of the O.T.O. lamen, we do not see a journey upward. Instead, we see a journey downward. We see the dove of the Holy Spirit or the Holy Guardian Angel descending from the supernal triad of the Father into the cup, which is symbolic of microprosopus, God in manifestation. And again, this mirrors the symbolism of the Holy Hexagram we see described in The Book of Lies chapter 69: “Plunge from the height, O God, and interlock with Man!” The whole figure is described as a glyph of “the Great Work”.

So in other words, in the lamen of the O.T.O., we are witnessing a symbol of the Great Work, this time not from the point of view of the candidate aspiring to Binah, but rather from the point of view of macroprosopus incarnating by means of the Holy Guardian Angel. Again, “This is my Seed. The Father is the Son through the Holy Spirit.”

This symbolism further reflects and reinforces my interpretation of Part VIII of the Gnostic Mass. Assuming the O.T.O. lamen has any connection with the central private and public rite of O.T.O., then the lamen indicates the same process at play in the Gnostic Mass where, by isolating the Secret Seed of himself, the Priest, in his role as Chaos, is incarnating his own Holy Guardian Angel. By consuming it, he is uniting himself with his HGA. The congregants are doing the same thing except perhaps in a more attentuated way. This seems to me the best way to make sense of Crowley’s claim in Magick in Theory and Practice chapter XX that:

[By doing eucharistic magick t]he magician becomes filled with God, fed upon God, intoxicated with God. Little by little his body will become purified by the internal lustration of God; day by day his mortal frame, shedding its earthly elements, will become in very truth the Temple of the Holy Ghost. Day by day matter is replaced by Spirit, the human by the divine; ultimately the change will be complete; God manifest in flesh will be his name.

This is the most important of all magical secrets that ever were or are or can be. To a Magician thus renewed the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel becomes an inevitable task; every force of his nature, unhindered, tends to that aim and goal of whose nature neither man nor god may speak, for that it is infinitely beyond speech or thought or ecstasy or silence. Samadhi and Nibbana are but its shadows cast upon the universe.

But then if this same process is also reflected in the O.T.O. lamen, then it stands to reason that the central secret of O.T.O. probably also involves this same mystery of the incarnation of the Angel.