tree of life - Light in Extension

tree of life with sephiroth presented as concentric circles

Why a circular Tree of Life?

April 7, 2021

by Entelecheia Uncategorized

Reflections on the Path in Eternity (Part 4)

I came to magick via an unsual path: through my interest in the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

Hegel was not a magician. He was a late-18th/early-19th century philosopher in the idealist tradition (a branch of thought taking influence from Descartes, Berkeley, and Hume, but which is usually seen as having its origin with the Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant).

But it was after I had been interested in Hegel for over a decade that I read Glenn Magee’s book, Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition. (You can read the introduction of the book here for free. It actually provides a pretty good orientation for how Hermetism differs from Gnostism and traditional Christianity.)

Magee persuaded me that Hegel’s philosophy of Absolute Idealism owed at least as much to Renaissance Hermetism (or Hermeticism as it’s sometimes called) as it did to rational thinkers such as Hume or Kant.

Magee understands Hermetism as a broad spiritual current which has a theological basis in the Corpus Hermeticum but which also includes currents such as Qabalah, alchemy, and magic.

Pretty much everything we consider to be the western magical tradition has its origins in Renaissance Hermetism, in particular the synthesis given to it by Cornelius Agrippa. (Really the only component missing from Agrippa’s synthesis is the tarot.)

For more on this I highly recommend Frances Yates’s Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. Certain aspects of her work are considered controversial now. I recommend reading Copenhaver, Hanegraaff, and Kingsley alongside her.

One of the main impacts Magee’s book had on me when I read it is that—oddly enough—it legitimized occultism for me.

Hegel was a philosopher I had spent over a decade studying both in and outside of academia. I considered a lot of my philosophical intuitions to be “Hegelian”. The experience was a little bit like having lived in a house for several years and then one day discovering a secret sub-basement that wasn’t on any of the building plans.

I was becoming familiar with the Qabalah right around the time I read Magee’s book (largely due to the work of my friend Daniel Ingram who also legitimized magick for me), so I recognized the Tree of Life in its usual top-to-bottom arrangement. But I was surprised to find out that there had been alternative arrangements of the sephiroth over time, including one in which they were presented as concentric circles.

For instance, Johann Jakob Brucker gave them a circular arrangement in volume 2 of his influential Historia Critica Philosophiae (1742).

Brucker's tree of life with sephiroth presented as concentric circles with Ain Sof on outside.

This diagram was Brucker’s attempt to illustrate a concept from the Lurianic tradition of Kabbalah, according to which each new act of creation or manifestation in the world is the result of a simultaneous contraction and expansion.

Isaac Luria and his followers envisioned the Ain Sof—the limitless infinity we previously identified with Nuit—as an infinite sphere in which a smaller sphere of empty space came into being through the tsimtsum, a primordial contraction or withdrawal of God.

It is into this empty space that God injects a ray of light which differentiates itself into the classical ten sephiroth. These were thought of as concentric circles of light filling the space within God created by the primordial contraction.

The first definite being that appears in the wake of the tsimtsum is Adam Kadmon (macroprosopus in the previous post). Adam Kadmon exists above the four worlds and mediates the light of Ain Sof into them.

Adam of the Bible—Adam Ha-Rishon—is an imperfect earthly embodiment of Adam Kadmon. While Adam Kadmon is spirit outside of space and time, Adam Ha-Rishon is spirit developing in nature, from the fall in the Garden of Eden and the loss of the immediate relationship to God, eventually to the recovery of that relationship in religion and mysticism (namely, Kabbalah).

(Ra-Hoor-Khuit is to Chaos as Adam Kadmon is to Adam Ha-Rishon.)

The implication of this concentric arrangement is that the material universe, individuals, and human history are not outside of the divine. Everything is in a certain sense “in” God. It’s just there in a corrupted or fallen state which has to be rectified over time.

This sense of us being in God, of directly participating in the divine all the time whether we know it or not, can be occulted by the traditional top-down arrangement of the sephiroth, where it looks as though Kether, Ain Sof, and Ain are somehow way above us mere earthlings.

IAO131's circular concentric arrangement of the sephiroth with kether on the outside and malkuth in the middle.

“A View from Kether” by IAO131

A few years later when I got into Thelema, I was pleased to see someone else had taken an interest in a similar arrangement. IAO131 created a diagram similar to Brucker’s in which Kether surrounds and contains the other sephiroth. My own version was inspired by his insofar as the sephiroth on the lateral pillars are depicted as semicircles rather than complete spheres.

What these concentric representations of the Tree of Life share in common is the implication that the reality we find ourselves in is one formed from an overarching, primordial, divine unity which divides itself.

There is some evidence in Crowley’s writings to support this view of our reality being the result of a self-division of God.

To know itself, each such Star, or Soul, must eat of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, by accepting labour and pain as its portion, and death as its doom. That is, it must reveal its nature to itself by formulating that nature as duality. It must express itself by a series of symbolic gestures ostensibly external to it, just as a painter reveals one facet of his Delight-Diamond by covering a canvas with colours in such a way that the picture seems at first sight to represent something outside himself. It must, in fact, repeat for itself the original Magick of Nuith and Hadith which created it.
New Comment on AL I.29 (emphasis mine)

AL I.29—of which this passage is a commentary—reads, “For I am divided for love’s sake, for the chance of union.”

We find in this passage echoes of the Lurianic idea of the fall as a temporary but necessary tragedy resulting from the diremption of an original, absolute whole (in this case the “Star, or Soul” of the individual).

The way to overcome this division is to repeat for ourselves the “original Magick of Nuith and Hadith” which created the star.

In this passage, Crowley presents the path toward liberation in artistic terms. The task is to see the world and the events in it, not as alien to our desires, but rather as vehicles for the manifestation of them. We are to view matter as (akin to) artistic medium.

The world loses its alien, painful character when it is understood and willed. When we can see the world as our own artistic creation, we have achieved liberation.

This is an interpretation of the Thelemic path of liberation I explored in my talk on the Magical Power of Art.

It was with something like this in mind that I formulated my own version of the concentric Tree of Life. However, unlike Brucker or IAO131, I reversed the order of the sephiroth. Rather than having Kether on the outside and Malkuth in the center, Malkuth is on the outside and Kether is in the center.

As it turns out, my reasons for doing this are numerous and complex. But before explaining any of them in detail, it’s worth mentioning that old adage that “the map is not the territory.”

I don’t believe sephiroth literally exist, let alone whether they are really, in any kind of metaphysical sense, related to one another externally or internally, or whether Malkuth can really be said to be at the center or not. That’s not really the point of a diagram.

In this context, the purpose of the diagram is to serve as a heuristic. It’s an attempt to convey some complex ideas in a simplified format that makes them easier to comprehend.

There could well be certain aspects of Thelema that are better captured by having Kether on the outside and Malkuth in the center, just as there are aspects that are better captured by the usual hierarchical (top-down) arrangement.

All of that being said, there are a lot of spiritual, metaphysical, theological, and soteriological assumptions packed into this simple decision to put Kether at the center and Malkuth on the outside.

Some of them require a lot of explanation and carry with them a lot of implications, so rather than go into any of them in depth right now, I’ll just list them succinctly.

Repeat = Defeat. Let’s present something familiar in an unfamiliar format to discover new things about it.
The journey is inward, out outward. Crowley described the work of A∴A∴ (in contrast with the work of O.T.O.) as a process of going inward toward the three supernal sephiroth. Without taking it too literally, that implies a certain spatial relationship. And since all the sephiroth are to be found “in” Malkuth, this links Thelema with what might be termed a chthonic counter-current in Western mysticism.
The Khabs is in the Khu, not the Khu in the Khabs. Again, this implies a particular spatial relationship. This also implies that divine reality is not some original whole we were cut off from and have to get back to. This core spiritual idea sharply differentiates Thelema from Hegelian Idealism, Gnosticism, or even from Kabbalah. In Thelema the individual really is primary and irreducible in a way that you just don’t find in those other traditions.
Thelema is about 2, not about 1. It’s all about the relationship between Hadit and Nuit. In order for there to be a love relationship between Hadit and Nuit, Nuit must be other than Hadit. That doesn’t work if Hadit and Nuit are merely parts of a primordial, original whole.
It’s all about the going. Experience matters. Change is real. It is powerful, it is divine, and it is meaningful. The O.T.O. teaching on the Path in Eternity is as central to Thelema as are the teachings of A∴A∴ on the Holy Guardian Angel and the Abyss.
It’s magick, not just mysticism. Going implies change, change implies magick, magick implies the Will. Willing implies traditionally masculine qualities such as mastery, overcoming, and expansiveness in addition to the feminine characteristics of dissolution and surrender that are particular to mysticism. Both sides are necessary for a complete understanding of Thelema.

I don’t know yet if I’m going to write posts about all of these. If there are particular ones you definitely want to hear about, though, let me know in a comment.

Two concentric circles, the interior labeled "Khabs," the exterior "Khu"

The Khu

April 5, 2021

by Entelecheia Uncategorized

Reflections on the Path in Eternity (Part 3)

In the last post we saw that the star or soul of each individual is composed of two parts: the Khabs and the Khu. The Khabs is the manifestation of a distinct individual within the context of Nuit. The Khabs is the “house” of Hadit—your individual point of view—and as such it is the spiritual essence of who you are as an individual. We also saw that the Khabs is identical with the supernal triad on the Tree of Life, and as such it takes a triadic, reflective structure.

The Khu, on the other hand, is the “magical garment” of the star.

Khabs is the secret Light or L.V.X.; the Khu is the magical entity of a man […] This ‘star’ or ‘Inmost Light’ is the original, individual, eternal essence. The Khu is the magical garment which it weaves for itself, a ‘form’ for its Being Beyond Form, by use of which it can gain experience through self-consciousness
Old and New Comments on AL I.8

Each of us is Hadit, the core of our Khabs, our Star, one of the Company of Heaven; but this Khabs needs a Khu or Magical Image, in order to play its part in the Great Drama. This Khu, again, needs the proper costume, a suitable ‘body of flesh’, and this costume must be worthy of the Play.
New Comment on AL II.70

The Khabs represents the essence of who each of us is. It is possessed of the attributes of light, originality, individuality, and immortality. The Khu on the other hand is the mode by which the Khabs interacts with Nuit. If the Khabs is monistic (completely self-sufficient), the Khu is relational. It doesn’t exist without the interaction between the Khabs and Nuit.

And for that matter, the relationship between Khabs (or Hadit) and Nuit does not exist without the Khu. In other words, experience or embodiment of some kind is the necessary condition of the love “play” between Nuit and Hadit.

One answer to the question “Why do we incarnate?” is that incarnation (whether on this plane or some other) is a necessary precondition for Hadit’s going. In a subsequent post we can look at what some of the consequences of that are.

Unlike the Khabs of an individual which cannot be seen (arguably not even by the individual whose Khabs it is), since the Khu is relational, it is also manifest and can be seen either by the individual whose Khu it is or by others.

Animation of the khu growing and shrinking

Also, since the Khu is a function of the interaction between the Khabs and Nuit, it is experiential and elastic. It grows and shrinks and changes in complexity in accordance with how much and what kind of experiences of Nuit one chooses to have.

“Every man and every woman is a star,” that is, an aggregate of such experiences, constantly changing with each fresh event, which affects him or her either consciously or subconsciously.
“Introduction” to the Book of the Law

the more complex the Khu of the Star, the greater the man, and the keener his sense of his need to achieve it.
New Comment on AL II.74

animation showing that the supernal triad is the khabs and the lower sephiroth are the khu

If the Khabs is the supernal triad on the Tree of Life, the Khu is composed of the subsequent seven sephiroth.

With each incarnation, the sephiroth below Binah are recreated anew, following the path of the Flaming Sword. At death, the lower sephiroth are jettisoned, and the essence of the Khabs is completely withdrawn back into the supernal triad.

animation depicting the flaming sword creating the sephiroth

The exception to this is the individual who, through mystical and magical discipline, has opened and strengthened the pathways to their own Khabs.

[T]he Supernal Triad constitutes (or, rather, is an image of) the “eternal” Essence of a man [i.e., his Khabs]; that is, it is the positive expression of that ultimate “Point of View” which is and is not and neither is nor is not etc. Quite indestructible. Now when a man spends his life (a) building up and developing the six Sephiroth of the Ruach so that they cohere closely in proper balance and relation, (b) in forging, developing and maintaining a link of steel between this solid Ruach and that Triad, Death merely means the dropping off of the Nephesch (Malkuth) so that the man takes over his instrument of Mind (Ruach) with him to his next suitably chosen vehicle.
Magick without Tears, chapter 38

Appear on the throne of Ra!
Open the ways of the Khu!
Lighten the ways of the Ka!
AL III.37

This is how the magical memory of a star can be built up over a series of incarnations.

This doctrine seems to imply that wisdom is not just passed down through the historical record but can also accumulate in certain stars on the Akashic plane.

Every star is already irreducibly individual and therefore unequal with any other star. But additionally it is also possible certain stars are “great beings” who, for reasons of having built up a magical memory over time, are possessed of extraordinary wisdom.

[C]ertain vast “stars” (or aggregates of experience) may be described as Gods. One of these is in charge of the destinies of this planet for periods of 2,000 years.
“Introduction” to the Book of the Law

It’s possible Crowley understood this as the mechanism by which “Secret Chiefs” are created.

It would explain why he used names such as “Aiwass” and “V.V.V.V.V.” both as aspects of himself and as names of separate individuals. “Aleister Crowley” was merely the latest expression or mode (Khu) of an essence (Khabs) of which Aiwass and V.V.V.V.V. were others.

Crowley elaborates on metempsychosis in Liber Aleph, “De Adeptis R. C. Escatologia,” which should be studied closely by initiates of the III° of Mysteria Mystica Maxima.

But it is this continual extension and withdrawal of the Khu—and hence the relations of the Khabs with Nuit—which is visually depicted again and again in the movie.

Star (with Khabs and Khu) next to a circular Tree of Life, next to a standard tree of life

Reflections on the Path in Eternity (Part 2)

April 2, 2021

by Entelecheia Uncategorized

Another relationship I establish at the beginning of the video is between the soul (which in Thelema is called the star) and the Tree of Life of Qabalah. (I use Kabbalah when talking about the Jewish mystical tradition itself and Qabalah when talking about the interpretation of it by the Golden Dawn and Crowley.)

Tree of Life/Qabalah Basics

The relationship between the four worlds and the five parts of the soul on the Tree of Life

That such a relationship exists shouldn’t be a surprise. The Tree of Life diagram is meant to show the relationship between the soul (the microcosm) and the four worlds (the macrocosm).

The bottom circle or sephira, Malkuth (“kingdom”), is Assiah (“the world of action”). It is often identified with the material world, although for reasons we’ll get into later, that is not necessarily the case in Thelema.

The microcosmic correlate of Malkuth/Assiah—the part of the soul that resides there—is the Nephesh. This is sometimes translated as “animal soul”. It is the part of the individual that is sentient, i.e., which experiences sensations and feelings.

Going upward from Malkuth, the next six sephiroth are Yesod (“foundation”), Hod (“splendor”), Netzach (“victory”), Tiphareth (“beauty”), Geburah (“severity”), and Chesed (“mercy”). Together they comprise the macrocosmic realm of Yetzirah (“the formed world”). Yetzirah is also known as Zeir Anpin or Microprosopus, the Lesser Countenance (in contrast with Arich Anpin/Macroprosopus).

The part of the soul that resides in Yetzirah is called the Ruach (“spirit”). It is typically identified with the moral soul or the discriminating capacity.

Above that we have Binah (“understanding”) and Chokmah (“wisdom”). Together they comprise Briah (“the world of creation”). This is analogous to the world soul of Neoplatonic philosophy.

The part of the soul that resides in Binah is called the Neschamah, the intelligence or divine intuition. The part of the soul that resides in Chokmah is the Chiah, which in Thelema it is identified with the creative will or impulse of Jechidah.

Jechidah is the “quintessential principle of the soul,” and it is identical with Kether, the uppermost sephira on the diagram, which is analogous to the One of Neoplatonic philosophy.

All three of the “supernal” sephiroth—Binah, Chokmah, and Kether—transcend time, but Kether also transcends being and non-being. It transcends opposition all-together.

The three negative veils beyond Kether: Ain, Ain Sof, and Ain Sof Aur.

“Beyond” Kether there are the purely transcendent, incomprehensible aspects of divinity, which in Kabbalah are called Ain (Nothingness) and Ain Sof (without limit/infinity). The Hermetic Qabalah of Knorr von Rosenroth and the Golden Dawn includes Ain Sof Aur (limitless light) as a third “negative veil”.

In Kabbalah Ain and Ain Sof (being and nothingness, essentially) are considered to be identical with one another, and Ain Sof is for all intents and purposes identical with Kether.

Qabalah and Thelema

Kether (Heru-Ra-Ha) as the Manifestation of the Interaction between Nuit (infinity) and Hadit (the inverse of infinity) (more…)

Thelema is not traditional Jewish mysticism, although Crowley used the terminology and the framework of Qabalah in order to express his own ideas and intentions.

So you find the same idea of a macrocosm divided up into four worlds, and there are parts of the soul which correspond to or “live” in those four worlds, so that the individual’s life or experience is divided across different realms which are ultimately (mystically) one realm.

In Thelema the macrocosm is composed of the interplay or interaction between two principles, Nuit and Hadit.

Nuit represents the sum total of all possibility. She is infinite space. Hadit represents any particular point of view on those possibilities. He is the infinitely small point.

Nuit is analogous to Ain Sof (infinity) in classical Kabbalah, and Hadit is analogous to Ain (nothingness or the inverse of infinity). Their interaction gives rise to Ra-Hoor-Khuit (sometimes also called Heru-Ra-Ha to include Hoor-paar-kraat), the Crowned and Conquering Child, who is also Ain Sof Aur or Kether.

Since Kether is “pregnant” with Tetragrammaton, you get the familiar breakdown into the remaining nine other sephiroth and the four worlds.

The Khabs and the Tree of Life

The star's anatomy: khabs (center) and khu (surrounding)

In Thelema the immortal soul of the individual is called the star. This comes from AL I.3 (The Book of the Law, chapter 1, verse 3):

Every man and every woman is a star.

Crowley subdivides the soul or star according to the usual schema of Jechidah, Chiah, Neschamah, Ruach, and Nephesh, but he introduces another subdivision based upon AL I.8-9:

The Khabs is in the Khu, not the Khu in the Khabs. Worship then the Khabs, and behold my light shed over you!

Khabs and Khu are Egyptian terms. In the context of Thelema, Khabs is the “House” of Hadit. Hadit as we saw is the individual point of view on Nuit. Khabs then is the manifestation of that unique interaction. You can think of it almost as the light given off by the energetic interaction between Hadit and Nuit. And in fact in the Golden Dawn—where Crowley would have first encountered this term—Khabs was used as synonymous with light as in the phrase Khabs am Pekht, which means “light in extension” (cf. Ain Sof Aur above).

Animation showing relationship of khabs to supernal triad.

In Thelema the whole of the supernal triad—Kether, Chokmah, and Binah—is considered to be the Khabs. Kether is the essence of the Khabs, taken in and of itself, which is also called Jechidah. Chokmah represents Chiah, the creative impulse or will of the Jechidah. In other words, Chokmah/Chiah represents the mode of going or expression which is characteristic of this particular Khabs or soul. And finally Binah represents the Neschamah of the Khabs. It is the intelligence or intuition of what the Khabs wishes to discover about itself.

It might help to translate these terms into those of ordinary self-conscious.

I have a self which seems stable over time. This is like the Jechidah or Kether. That self or subject is capable of generating thoughts and other mental states. The analog in the supernal triad would be Chiah or Chokmah. Finally, when I hear thoughts in my head, I am able (if I am not insane!) to recognize them as mine. This capacity of self-recognition is analogous to Neschamah or Binah.

Both ordinary self-consciousness and the supernal triad have this triadic or circular structure.

That’s plenty for today. Here are the main takeaways:

In Thelema the soul of the individual is called the star.
The star is divided up into the Khabs and the Khu.
The Khabs is the House of Hadit (the individual point of view on Nuit).
The Khabs is identified by Crowley with the supernal triad of the Tree of Life: Kether, Chokmah, and Binah.

Next time we’ll consider the Khu and its relationship to the Khabs and the Tree of Life.

Liber V vel Reguli and the Formula of AHIHVH

July 7, 2020

by Entelecheia Uncategorized

I spent some time recently looking closely at Liber V vel Reguli along with the commentary and the early draft notes, and feel like I have come to a few insights which could be of use to others.

As I’ve shown before, one of the main themes of Crowley’s spirituality is the movement from speech to silence and back again. This could also be viewed as the expression of nullity (Ain of Kabbalah) into manifestation (the Tree of Life itself) and the individual’s path of return back to nullity. The first part of this equation expresses Thelemic cosmology, the latter Thelemic soteriology.

In Reguli these movements are dramatized and expressed in the formula LAShTAL. LA means “not,” while AL means “God”. LA and AL represent nullity in concealment and manifestation respectively, while ShT is the process that mediates between them.

In order for ShT to mediate between LA and AL, they have to conjointly share something in common between LA and AL while also adding new information.

LAShTAL represented as three interlocking circles. The overlapping portions are labeled "31".

LA and AL both add to 31 by gematria. ShT also adds to 31 by way of the tarot cards these letters are attributed to. Sh or Shin is the Hebrew letter assigned to The Aeon, Atu XX, and T or Teth is assigned to Lust, Atu XI.

As someone recently pointed out to me, there is a tradition in the Golden Dawn, recorded in the Z1 document, of ST denoting an influence from Kether. ST is the Coptic letter ⲋ (“ⲥⲟⲟⲩ” or “soou”). Crowley continues this tradition by assigning this letter to Kether in 777, Column LI.

So by means of its association with 31 and Kether, ShT is identical with the (N)One at the foundation of Thelemic ontology and theology.

But ShT has an additional function. It also indicates the Beast and Babalon conjoined. It is a sexual formula. This sexual formula is indicated by how it is represented in Reguli on the human body and on the Tree of Life.

In the ritual, Aiwass, Therion, and Babalon are attributed to the cross paths of the Tree of Life: Daleth, Teth, and Pe respectively. The cross paths are important as they mediate between the Pillar of Severity and the Pillar of Mercy.

Tree of Life emphasizing the cross paths of Daleth (Aiwass), Teth (Therion), and Peh (Babalon), and how they add up to 93.

As taught in the Golden Dawn 4°=7^□ ritual, the left pillar, the Pillar of Severity, is associated with the letter Shin, which is assigned to elemental fire, while the right pillar, the Pillar of Mercy, is Mem or elemental water. The Middle Pillar is then Aleph, which is elemental air. Fire is archetypally masculine, water feminine, and air androgyne.

Diagram of the three pillars of the Tree of Life, assigned to Shin/Fire, Aleph/Air, and Mem/Water respectively.

However, these sexual characteristics are not assigned to the pillars in a straightforward way. While the Pillar of Severity is fiery and masculine, the topmost sephira, Binah, is archetypally feminine. She is the supernal Mother. And opposite her, on the Pillar of Mercy, we find Chokmah, which is archetypally masculine, the supernal Father. They are “reflected” in Netzach (masculine-feminine) and Hod (feminine-masculine) respectively, as Kether is reflected in Tiphareth. This reflection occurs both horizontally across the Tree (Binah and Netzach and Chokmah and Hod are opposite each other across the Middle Pillar) and vertically down the Tree (they are opposite Tiphareth). The vertical and horizontal “components” of Liber V vel Reguli work with this double-reflection of sexual energy.

One can view this double-reflection of magical sexual polarity taking place on the Tree as a movement of energy down the Tree of Life from Kether into the subsequent Sephiroth along the paths. One androgyne current emerging from Kether, represented by the path of Aleph, becomes masculine upon reaching Chokmah. There it progresses down the tree along the archetypally masculine paths of Vau, Yod, Ayin, and Resh, into Yesod. In Yesod it is met by a complementary feminine path, originating with Beth’s entry into Binah, and progressing down the Tree along the paths of Cheth, Lamed, Nun, and Tzaddi.

Tree of Life emphasizing the paths of A-V-Y-O-R and B-Ch-L-N-Tz as they descend from Kether into Yesod.

This exchange and “mixing in Yesod” is represented on the Art card, Atu XIV. Art is a hieroglyph of the path of Samekh, which links Yesod with Tiphareth. Here we see the Lion and the Eagle which have exchanged their colors as represented earlier on the Lovers card, Atu VI. If the paths on the Tree represent these essences or potencies, then they were exchanged at Tiphareth, a sphere which, among other things, is the site in which the Rose (Kteis) and Cross (phallus) are conjoined. The caldron is Yesod, which is linked with the sexual organs and the Muladhara cakra. We see spiritual air—presumably the Medicine of Metals—rising out of the caldron, represented by the arrow, as the Caput Mortuum (skull) drops to the bottom.

The cross paths are important to this process, because they are mediating the exchange of energies down the Tree. They are in a sense guiding and determining the separation and mixing of these sexual polarities. That these paths add up to 93 is significant. It tells us that the 93 magical current has something essential to do with the production of sexual polarity from out of androgyny and back again. It has to do with the movement of 0 to 2 (magick) and from 2 to 0 (mysticism), both as a personal spiritual journey and as a cosmological process. Aiwass, Therion, and Babalon are personages representing these governing principles.

For me personally, this is not simply theory. When I’m serving as Priest in the Gnostic Mass, I picture this exchange of energy occurring—moving down and wrapping around and joining mine and the Priestess’s hearts—at the consummation of the eucharist. We are linked energetically at the levels of mind (Daleth and Kether), heart (Teth and Tiphareth), and body (Peh and Yesod). The Tree of Life with the cross-paths can also be used as scaffolding for visualizations during sex magick workings.

If the horizontal component is governed by Aiwass, Therion, and Babalon, the vertical component is governed by Nuit, Ra-Hoor-Khuit, and Hadit. Nuit is associated with the Sahasrara cakra/Kether/the Three Negative Veils; Ra-Hoor-Khuit is linked specifically with the Anahata cakra and the paths of Teth, Yod, and Lamed (which add to 49), but also arguably with the entirety of the Tree in manifestation (hence Microprosopus); and Hadit is linked with the Muladhara cakra and Yesod and/or Malkuth (Crowley refers to this as the “seed” in his commentary).

The conjunction of Nuit and Hadit produces the godhead, Ra-Hoor-Khuit (or Heru-Ra-Ha, so as to include Hoor-paar-kraat). Hadit, as the consciousness or point of view of the individual, is implanted in Malkuth as a seed represented by Heh-final, the Virgin Daughter whose destiny is to be seated upon the Throne of the Mother (Binah). Crowley consistently related the three deities of the Book of the Law to the Tree of Life this way.

So one thing to take note of when attempting to understand LAShTAL is that it shares the same form or structure taken by these three personages in relation to the Tree of Life. You have two simple extremes mediated by a complex third thing sharing characteristics with both of the extremes. Indeed, the entire Tree of Life itself—or Ra-Hoor-Khuit—could be seen as a means of mediating between these oppositions.

LA and AL shown as two extremes with the Tree of Life (ShT/Ra-Hoor-Khuit) shown mediating them.

But how does the introduction of the horizontal component modify or inform this cosmological and theological process of the implantation, germination, and return of Hadit to the source?

The cross-paths enter into this as they are involved in the drawing of the Hexagram of Nature on the Tree of Life. Generally speaking, the hexagram is the symbol of the union of the individual with the divine, with the mirroring in the microcosm of the structure of the macrocosm. As such it is symbolic of the individual who has become divine. The cross-paths of Teth and Pe are involved in this hexagram—in fact are the only actual paths involved—as they form bases of the two interlocking triangles.

Tree of Life emphasizing how the path of Teth forms the base of a triangle linking Chesed and Geburah with Yesod, and how Peh forms the base of a triangle linking Hod and Netzach with Daath.

Typically the upward-pointing triangle represents fire and is therefore masculine, while the downward-pointing triangle is water and feminine. But a different connotation is suggested in Reguli where the base of the upward-pointing triangle is assigned to Babalon, and the base of the downward-pointing triangle is Therion. The polarities are reversed.

Same as the previous diagram, only now the downward pointing triangle is red, and the upward pointing triangle is blue. This is the Holy Hexagram projected on to the Tree of Life.

This suggests not so much the familiar Hexagram of Nature but rather the Magical Hexagram as described by Crowley in the Book of Lies, where fire points down and water up.

In the ordinary Hexagram, the Hexagram of nature, the red triangle is upwards, like fire, and the blue triangle downwards, like water. In the magical hexagram this is reversed; the descending red triangle is that of Horus, a sign specially revealed by him personally, at the Equinox of the Gods. (It is the flame desending upon the altar, and licking up the burnt offering.) The blue triangle represents the aspiration, since blue is the colour of devotion, and the triangle, kinetically considered, is the symbol of directed force.
Book of Lies, Chapter 69

Crowley explicitly associates force with the path of Teth in Reguli, as he associates fire with Shin. Hence ShT represents “force and fire”. In the context of the ritual, these triangles would interlock and interpenetrate around Tiphareth, representative of the Anahata cakra, Ra-Hoor-Khuit, and, as we saw earlier, Kteis-Phallus or the Rose-Cross.

As the upward-pointing blue triangle represents Babalon, the Mother, we could attribute the three Mother Letters (Aleph, Mem, and Shin) to its three points, as we might attribute the masculine trinity, IAO, to the three points of the downward-pointing red triangle. Their conjunction gives us the word AShIAVM, which has the same value as MShICh (Messiah) and NChSh (Nechesh, Serpent).

The Messiah or Anointed One affects the union between the individual and the divine. The Serpent in the Garden of Eden is the initiator of mankind into knowledge or gnosis. In Thelemic soteriology, this saving, initiating power is not one individual but rather the conjoining of two individuals, Therion (666) and Babalon (156). And the way in which this union between the divine and the individual is affected is sexual in nature.

The Holy Hexagram, now with 666/IAO and 156/HHH attributed to the red and blue triangles respectively.

In this formula AShIAVM, the three mother letters are concealed by the letter Heh, giving us AHIHVH, the Great Name which is the conjunction of AHIH and IHVH.

AHIH is the godname of Kether. It represents existence in is most abstract quality or Macroprosopus. In the context of Reguli, it is LA, Nuit and Hadit conjoined.

IHVH represents god in manifestation or Microprosopus. It enumerates to 26 by gematria, which is 13 x 2. 13 is the enumeration of AChD or unity. IHVH therefore expresses unity (AL) by means of duality (ShT or Beast and Babalon conjoined). It is the way in which nullity expresses itself in manifestation or as the Tree of Life or 0=2.

Antonio Lau has come to a similar conclusion in his analysis of how the formula of AHIHVH relates to the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram:

The conclusion would be that all the points of the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram (32) on the whole create another Hexagram that symbolizes the Qabalistic Zero, radiating from the center of the Column and flooding the whole Circle with the Limitless Light of Ain Soph Aur. And the Hexagram is the formula of unifying opposites (positive and negative, active and passive, male and female), by the 0=2 Equation.

This sheds light on what it means that Reguli is meant to “invoke the energies of the Aeon of Horus.” The “first gesture” of the ritual—the drawing of the Elevenfold Seal—is depicting the unfolding process leading to the creation of the cosmos. It is also establishing the scaffolding—the cross-paths—that allow for the process of return. The “second gesture”—in which the Son raises the Daughter to the Throne of the Mother—is the familiar process of Tetragrammaton which, by means of sexual interaction between Son and Daughter, the process of return takes place. What Reguli adds to this conception is the idea that Nuit and Hadit (Daughter and Son) must become “sexually mature” as Babalon and Therion on their way of return.

AHIHVH is important for other aspects of Crowley’s spirituality. He relates it to the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram. By means of the LRP it is indirectly connected with the production of the Medicine of Metals. The connection with the Medicine of Metals is made explicit through Crowley’s discussion of the production of the Eucharist of Six Elements in Magick in Theory and Practice Chapter 20. The production of this medicine is a secret guarded by the Sanctuary of the Gnosis of O.T.O. This formula is also the guiding structure behind Liber HHH, which describes some of the work of the Outer College of A∴A∴. At least one Thelemic author, J. Daniel Gunther, has made an extensive case for the AHIHVH formula being essential to a comprehension of Thelemic initiation in general. (See Initiation in the Aeon of the Child and The Angel and the Abyss.)

Frontispiece of Initiation in the Aeon of the Child depicting the AHIHVH hexagram with various occult symbolism projected over it.

As I said in my recent talk on art and magick, when a magical formula is involved in so many disparate aspects of Crowley’s magick—especially when it illuminates mysteries of both A∴A∴ and O.T.O.—you can bet it is essential to an understanding of Thelemic spirituality generally. I hope to deal with this formula in greater depth in subsequent writings, exploring more fully its importance for Thelemic magick generally.

As for Reguli, my treatment of it here is not exhaustive. I have hardly dealt with the function of the cross-path of Daleth or how Aiwass figures into all of this. (There’s another hexagram that uses the path of Daleth as the base of a triangle.) I didn’t even touch on the elemental attributions of the deities/quarters, and I barely dealt with the significance of the cakras. But hopefully this shows the way in which Reguli is expressive of the underlying ontology and theology of Thelema and how the sex magick implicit in it relates to Crowley’s broader spiritual concern as expressed in the AHIHVH formula.

Ceiling of Pantheon, Rome, Italy. Photo by Mohammed Reza Domiri Ganji.

Balance and Imbalance on the Path

June 27, 2020

by Entelecheia Uncategorized

There’s this ancient temple in Rome called the Pantheon. It has a giant domed ceiling with a hole right in the center of it. I visited it in my 20s. I think “grand” is the right word to describe it. It’s not easy to capture in a photo.

When I think about the relationship between magick (especially theurgy) and mysticism, I recall what it was like looking up at the ceiling of the Pantheon from inside. I imagine the flower of the rose-cross painted on the ceiling, the opening in the middle being where the central cross would be. The multi-colored petals would be painted around the hole.

Rose-Croix designed in Adobe Illustrator by Entelecheia.

Whether you’re practicing theurgy or yoga, you’re aiming up in both cases. It’s just a question of how you aim. When you unite yourself with some particular god or goddess—or if you’re just working with some particular path—that’s aiming toward one of the petals off to the side of the central opening. But yoga is like aiming in a direct, vertical line through the hole in the roof.

Of course that’s exactly how Crowley thought of Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel as well. The Holy Guardian Angel is on the middle pillar of the Tree of Life.

The magician devotes himself entirely to the invocation of a God, and as soon as his balance approaches Perfection he ceases to invoke any partial God; only that God vertically above him is in his path. And so a man who perhaps took up magic merely with the idea of acquiring knowledge, love, or wealth, finds himself irrevocably committed to the performance of the great work.
Magick in Theory and Practice, Chapter 15

I shoot up vertically like an arrow, and become that Above. But it is death, and the flame of the pyre. Ascend in the flame of the pyre, O my soul! Thy God is like the cold emptiness of the utmost heaven, into which thou radiatest thy little light. When Thou shall know me, O empty God, my flame shall utterly expire in Thy great N. O. X.
Liber VII, I.37-40

The O.T.O. IX° working is also a middle pillar working. It is attributed to the path of Samekh, the path uniting the Sun (Tiphareth) with the Moon (Yesod). Its hieroglyph depicts a Lion and an Eagle exchanging their essences into a cauldron. The Caput Mortuum drops to the bottom of the cauldron as spiritual air (Aleph, Baphomet) rises. This rising spiritual current is the “Rashith-ha-Gilgalim of the new Universe created of the Quintessence of the Substance of the Unity of the Angel and the Adept, expressed therefrom by virtue of ‘love under will’ at the moment of Rapture.” (Commentary on LXV V.1) This is the spiritual essence unlocked from the Eucharist of One Element, the Medicine of Metals. It is like a cosmic stem cell which can be molded into any physically possible state of affairs by the magician.

In other words this issue of working the middle pillar applies both to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel as well as the IX° magick. It applies to the mysteries of both A∴A∴ and O.T.O.

This mystery is represented analogously in the Gnostic Mass. Here it is depicted using a eucharist of two elements rather than one. The Priestess is like the Angel of the Priest, and the “moment of rapture” is symbolized when they cry HRILIU.

Another way to put it is that in the case of yoga, one aspires up the middle pillar, but in this particular kind of magick, one manifests a current down the middle pillar (into the organs of generation, which are represented on the Tree of Life by Yesod). Generally speaking, magick is a movement of energy “down the Tree”. The impulse originates with the Will in Chokmah and is given form on the astral at Yesod before manifesting in Malkuth. Yoga, theurgy, and path workings tend to be ascensions “up the Tree”. Both operations (yoga and magick) require mastery of the subtle energetic currents represented by the entire Tree of Life, though.

It’s a commonplace to talk up “balance” in relation to Crowley and Thelema, but it really is an essential theme. “Balance” will mean different things to you at different points of your spiritual development. There’s balance of the elements within your conscious experience. There’s a balance point or borderline between conscious and unconscious which has to be worked with more or less interminably. There’s contrasexual balance points.

What happens typically is that you experience a “calling” into some terra incognita. This might be an entirely new calling, or it might be some perennial difficulty in your life. But it will draw out what Jung called a complex. The easiest way to describe a complex is that you just don’t feel like yourself anymore. You feel like you’ve temporarily become a different person. If you are usually self-controlled, you’re suddenly impulsive. If you’re usually strong, you’re suddenly clingy and weak. If you’re usually kind, you’re suddenly sadistic. And then you have to work with that imbalance in order to get yourself back to a place of balance.

God is above sex; and therefore neither man nor woman as such can be said fully to understand, much less to represent, God. It is therefore incumbent on the male magician to cultivate those female virtues in which he is deficient, and this task he must of course accomplish without in any way impairing his virility. It will then be lawful for a magician to invoke Isis, and identify himself with her; if he fail to do this, his apprehension of the Universe when he attains Samadhi will lack the conception of maternity.
Magick in Theory and Practice, Chapter 1

In my opinion, Crowley’s description of this process here is perfunctory, even blithe.

In any case, there’s really no formula for this. I’m not even going to try to offer “helpful hints” on it. But generally speaking, that’s the work of magick or going “off-center” as I described above.

group of people staring off at a sunset over which hangs a unicursal hexagra

The gift that unites us

February 25, 2020

by Entelecheia Uncategorized

The purpose of any O.T.O. local body is to assist individuals to find their respective true wills and to promulgate Thelema. Differences in local culture notwithstanding, that’s what each lodge, oasis, or camp has a duty to do.

There are many ways individuals can interact with us. There are the obvious ones like attend Gnostic Mass, take initiation, become a member, or serve as clergy.

There are the less obvious and perhaps less appreciated ones like washing glasses after Mass, taking out the trash, making a $5 donation, or even clicking “Like” on a social media post.

But all these ways of interacting with O.T.O. are done in service to our ultimate purpose, which is help individuals bring about positive life change by finding their true wills and to promulgate Thelema.

This is our unique gift. It is the impact that unites us. When we keep this cause at the forefront of whatever we do, we best serve our communal goals and thereby best serve ourselves as members.

Crowley elaborates on this supreme cause in a variety of ways. One of the most conspicuous—which appears both on the Preliminary Pledge Form and on the O.T.O. USA website—says that O.T.O. is:

…pledged to the high purpose of securing the Liberty of the Individual and his or her advancement in Light, Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge, and Power through Beauty, Courage, and Wit, on the Foundation of Universal Brotherhood.

Like most things that Crowley writes, he is referencing the Holy Qabalah here. The concepts relate to the sephiroth in the following way:

Light – Kether
Wisdom – Chokmah
Understanding – Binah
Knowledge – Chesed (and arguably the whole of the Ruach as comprehended in Daath)
Power – Geburah
Beauty – Tiphareth
Courage – Netzach
Wit – Hod
Foundation of Universal Brotherhood – Yesod

the virtues of OTO as represented on the Tree of Life

This is a useful way to think about the means by which we assist individuals and promulgate the Law of Liberty.

Here is just one way to think about these means:

Light: While the light represented by Kether (Ain Soph Aur) is unlimited and therefore without opposition, it is helpful to convey this concept to our minds in opposition with darkness. We confront the darkness of the human condition when we find ourselves groping for solutions to barely understood problems. Light represents clarity about fundamental reality that comes from understanding the Law of Thelema. It is knowing that whatever difficult situation we find ourselves in, there is a solution, and that solution is to know and to do one’s true will.

Wisdom is the ability to put that solution into action based on life’s experience. A large part of that is “minding one’s own business,” i.e., making the development of one’s own true will the center and theme of one’s life without being overly concerned with the opinions of others. As a society of individuals pursuing different paths, O.T.O. offers many opportunities to practice this kind of discernment.

Understanding entails the rejection of superstition. One cannot simply will for an end to skepticism. Its end is only achieved in samadhi or in mystical union with the Divine through meditation and prayer. Short of that, ultimate reality cannot be known in and of itself. We therefore practice tolerance as a way of life. When we embody this value in our lodges, oases, and camps, we invite a great diversity of points of view, life paths, and backgrounds, thereby enriching our communities and promoting maximal growth through the intersections of these points of view.

Knowledge: We promote scientific religion. We do not demand that individuals accept premises without sufficient evidence. As a result, we do not place arbitrary restrictions on individuals’ advancement in our organization or in their self-development. Instead we give them the tools necessary for growth and fulfillment.

Power: We emphasize self-empowerment and self-control over the control or manipulation of others. We recognize that the greatest power comes from individuals having the maximum amount of control over their own lives, including their physical and emotional impulses. We align ourselves with those who reject coercion and tyranny in all its forms.

Beauty: Our spirituality is not merely private or mystical in nature. Magick is meant to create harmony between the desires of individuals and the world around them. Our spirituality is therefore sensuous in nature, as beauty is the image of the reconciliation between what is and what ought to be. We perform our rituals rightly, with joy and beauty.

Courage is not freedom from fear but rather the capacity to withstand, to carry, and to act appropriately even while experiencing fear. We do not promise that every step along this path is going to be warm cookies and ice cream. But we do provide opportunities—through initiation and through fraternity—to learn and to practice courage, truthfulness, and other forms of emotional intelligence.

Wit is the capacity to think quickly, to know how and when to apply concepts. O.T.O. consists in a diverse group of individuals from many backgrounds. As such, there are many opportunities for novel forms of interaction. Novelty throws us back on our own resources. It demands spontaneity rather than repetition. In other words, it requires learning.

Universal Brotherhood (or Sisterhood or Siblinghood as we now say) is both the foundation of all that precedes as well as its natural culmination, just as Yesod is both the “foundation” of the Tree of Life as well as the natural endpoint on the astral plane of any magical current. It is an image of the world in which the gifts inherent in all Points of View are capable of manifestation and expression to the ultimate. It is the world we are attempting to create by bringing about life change, one individual at a time.

As Crowley says in the essay “Man” in Little Essays Toward Truth:

The Quest of the Holy Grail, the Search for the Stone of the Philosophers—by whatever name we choose to call the Great Work—is therefore endless. Success only opens up new avenues of brilliant possibility. Yea, verily, and Amen! the task is tireless and its joys without bounds; for the whole Universe, and all that in it is, what is it but the infinite playground of the Crowned and Conquering Child, of the insatiable, the innocent, the ever-rejoicing Heir of Space and Eternity, whose name is MAN?

This is merely a small sample of all the ways in which O.T.O. bodies give the gift of life change with the purpose of securing liberty and free expression of all individuals. These are the gifts we should leverage for our self-development and for the growth of our communities.

What other ones can you think of?

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

May 27, 2019

by Entelecheia Uncategorized

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.