Preface By the Master Therion
A vast wave of pessimism has engulfed the fortress of Mansoul. It was indeed a deadly blow to the adepts of the White School when Science, their own familiar friend in whom they trusted, lifted up his heel against them. It was in this conjuncture that the Yellow adepts sent forth into the Western world a messenger, Helena Petrowna Blavatsky, with the distinct mission to destroy, on the one hand, the crude schools of Christianity, and, on the other, to eradicate the materialism from Physical Science. She made the necessary connection with Edward Maitland and Anna Kingsford, who were trying rather helplessly to put the exoteric formulae of the White School into the hands of students, and with the secret representatives of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood. It is not for us in this place to estimate the degree of success with which she carried out her embassy; but at least we see today that Physical Science is at last penetrating to the spiritual basis of material phenomena.
The work of Henry Poincar,
Einstein, Whitehead, and Bertrand Russell is sufficient evidence of this
fact. Christianity, too, has fallen into a lower degree of contempt
than ever. Realizing that it was moribund, it made a supreme and
suicidal effort, and plunged into the death-spasm of the first worldwar.
It was too far corrupt to react to the injections of the White Formula
which might have saved it. We see today that Christianity is more
bigoted, further divorced from reality, than ever. In some countries, it
has again become a persecuting church. With horrid glee the adepts of
the Black School looked on at these atrocious paroxysms. But it did
more. It marshalled its forces quietly, and prepared to clean up the
debris of the battlefields. It is at present (1924 e.v.) pledged to a
supreme attempt to chase the manly races from their spiritual halidom.
(The spasm still [1945 e.v.] continues; note well the pro-German screams
of Anglican Bishops, and the intrigues of the Vatican.) The Black
School has always worked insidiously, by treachery. We need then not be
surprised by finding that its most notable representative was the
renegade follower of Blavatsky, Annie Besant, and that she was charged
by her Black masters with the mission of persuading the world to accept
for its Teacher a negroid* Messiah. To make the humiliation more
complete, a wretched creature was chosen who, to the most loathsome
moral qualities, added the most fatuous imbecility. And then blew up!
–The Master Therion* "This, then, is the present state of the war of the Three Schools. We cannot suppose that humanity is so entirely base as to accept Krishnamurti; yet that such a scheme could ever have been conceived is a symptom of the almost hopeless decadence of the White School.
* The Black adepts boast openly that they have triumphed all along the line. Their formula has attained the destruction of all positive qualities. It is only one step to the stage when the annihilation of all life and thought will appear as a fatal necessity. The materialism and vital scepticism of the present time, its frenzied rush for pleasure in total disregard of any idea of building for the future, testifies to a condition of complete moral disorder, of abject spiritual anarchy."
(* Note. This passage was written in 1924 e.v. The Master Therion arose and smote him. What seemed a menace is now hardly even a memory.)
Note by Paul Joseph Rovelli: Having attended a small, private lecture of Krishnamurti's in the early 80s ev, and having read some of his writing, it is inconceivable that Crowley would ever have objected to the person of Krishnamurti. Nor was Crowley a racist in using 'negroid' a common term of the day in colloquial manner. It only sounds a compromising tone in today's circumstances. As a matter of fact, Krishnamurti also rejected and abhorred the messiah-ship that the Theosophists tried to foster on him. And so the attempt by the "Black adepts" to hold up their own false crown proved only their impotence.
Introduction
The inner order of the Golden Dawn held much of the history and many of the truths of the Western Mystery Tradition. And Aleister Crowley was its apt student; still owing much to what he learned in the order. Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky was both a contemporary of MacGregor Mathers and contributed much to its knowledge base. As a matter of fact, it is said that she, being of the Yellow School of Magick, came to the rescue of the White School, as she saw it betrayed by its science and had become all but completely obliterated by its historical nemesis; the Black School of Magick.
Crowley poured much of this knowledge into his seminal work, The Book of Thoth, while using it expound his own system of Thelema that was based entirely upon the truths of the Western Mystery Tradition. He had found, as we do today, that not only was the Golden Dawn distorting these truths, but that it was devolving into a maelstrom of ego worship and grade happiness, as it began to espouse more and more of the Christian morality that would connect it with the Black School.
As is the purpose of this work, we are striving to show that Thelema is looking into the ancient wisdom, as well as tapping into the Aethyr to develop its Magick and in this case, its Alchemy. The Secret Chiefs of the Eastern Mystery Tradition spoke through Madame Blavatsky in her prophetic work and commentary thereon; known as The Secret Doctrine. Its essential importance has long been overlooked by modern Occultists, as it is a voluminous work, but is as important a prophecy as the Holy Books of Thelema. The Secret Chiefs were for her, the ‘Hidden Mahatmas’ and she communicated with them to obtain a revelation on a par with Crowley’s work.
What is so surprising, even to many Buddhists today, is that Buddhism did not arise suddenly with the enlightenment of Siddhartha; who was given the title: Buddha. This title has existed long before the prince was born and arises from an esoteric tradition in the East that modern Buddhists are as unaware of, as are most Christians are of Western esotericism. And certainly, as Blavatsky shows so well, when we get to the roots of esotericism, the subtle differences between the East and West are facile and have little more than the differences of language and culture separating them.
So, might say that on one level, the Yellow and the White schools have much in common between them; with the Black School being more intimately connected with the socio-political power structures that hold the many regions of the world under its grip. And by this, we don’t mean to poo poo the Black School, as it also serves its purpose in creating order and structure in society that fosters human evolution. I have always maintained that all three schools can sit at the table of adepts and find the great comradery that exists for all spiritual warriors.
What the present work aspires to do is to show a cross section of Blavatsky’s voluminous tome and to compare this with Thelemic Doctrine. Even today, as Thelema is slowly growing, it is changing by falling back into the trap that destroyed the Golden Dawn. And for that matter, as Blavatsky was betrayed by Annie Besant’s Christianity and involvement in political activism, so too is Theosophy becoming a mundane farse.
In a sense then, we might say that the present work is payback to the great contribution made by both Crowley and Blavatsky; both of whom, interestingly enough, have been slandered incessantly by the Yellow Press, which is a major exponent of the Black School. The White School remains today and shall always remain for the few, as the Black School belongs to the many in West. And still, the Yellow School with its nihilistic anti-world philosophy also stands in contraposition with the White School and its espousal of the world. Its only saving grace for us is that it respects the importance of balance between the three schools, which we also maintain is important.
There are all kinds of people in the world at all levels of spiritual development. And there must be a place for them all of them, if one day, we are, as a race, to receive the grace and descent of the holy Shekinah that alone will grant us the wisdom to evolve to the next level in our evolutionary development.
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Chapter 5: Enochian Origins
The Book of the Law has this key line:
AL:I.22 "Now, therefore, I am known to ye by my name Nuit, and to him by a secret name which I will give him when at last he knoweth me. Since I am Infinite Space, and the Infinite Stars thereof, do ye also thus. Bind nothing! Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing & any other thing; for thereby there cometh hurt."
The key phrase from this, “I am known to ye by my name Nuit, and to him by a secret name which I will give him when at last he knoweth me.” This secret name of course, is Babalon, which Crowley learned in his scrying to the thirty Enochian Aethyrs. An entire doctrine came to light from this ancient Magick that was itself involved with pseudpegriphic legend.
We have speculated in the past, a strong identification of what has come to be called the Enochian Entities (or angels) with the Nephilim of the pseudpipha and the book of Genesis; upon the latter of which the Qabalah was founded. So we have in all this, a key to the Western Mystery Tradition, as Blavatsky has given to us so thoroughly.
Reading from HPBs Secret Doctrine, Vol. IV, Section 4...
So much greater the pity that a systematic and collective plagiarism, which went on for several centuries on the most gigantic scale, should be explained by another plagiarism, this time in the fourth Gospel. For the sentence quoted from it, "All that ever came before me, etc.," is a verbatim repetition of words written in the "Book of Enoch" lxxxix. In the Introduction to Archbishop Lawrence's translation of it from an Ethiopic MS. in the Bodleian Library, the editor, author of the "Evolution of Christianity," remarks: --
"In revising the proof-sheets of the Book of Enoch . . . . . the parable of the sheep, rescued by the good Shepherd from hireling guardians and ferocious wolves, is obviously borrowed by the fourth Evangelist from Enoch, lxxxix., in which the author depicts the shepherds as killing . . . the sheep before the advent of their Lord, and thus discloses the true meaning of that hitherto mysterious passage in the Johannine parable -- 'All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers' -- language in which we now detect an obvious reference to the allegorical shepherds of Enoch."
It is too late in the day to claim that it is Enoch who borrowed from the New Testament, instead of vice versa. Jude (14-15) quotes verbatim from Enoch a long passage about the coming of the Lord with his 10,000 saints, and naming specifically the prophet, acknowledges the source.
The powerful influence this early Hebrew legend has on the formation of Christianity and even of Thelema is also seen in the Old Testament; the Book of Daniel being copied into John's Revelation. And of course, this book draws more overtly from the Secret Doctrine of the ancients, and is even the source of the Merkabah tradition that generates the Qabalah.
This "parallelism between prophet and apostle, have placed beyond controversy that, in the eyes of the author of an Epistle accepted as divine revelation, the Book of Enoch was the inspired production of an antediluvian patriarch . . . " and further " . . . the cumulative coincidence of language and ideas in Enoch and the authors of N.T. Scripture, . . . clearly indicates that the work of the Semitic Milton was the inexhaustible source from which Evangelists and Apostles, or the men who wrote in their names, borrowed their conceptions of the resurrection, judgment, immortality, perdition, and of the universal reign of righteousness under the eternal dominion of the Son of Man. This Evangelical plagiarism culminates in the Revelation of John, which adapts the visions of Enoch to Christianity, with modifications in which we miss the sublime simplicity of the great Master of apocalyptic prediction, who prophesied in the name of the antediluvian Patriarch." (INT. xxxv.)
Early Christianity and/or Gnosticism was entirely syncretic, as is Thelema in so many ways. So it's not that it 'stole' from its sources, but that it co-opted what worked as these people responded to that 'fresh fever from the skies' that inaugurated their time; a time not all that unlike our own. The reason today, that I think the connotative idea that they stole something is that they ultimately turned away from their spiritual connection and established only a secular power that is but a shell of what they once were. And it is today that they steal souls and turn people into shells by imposing through fear, a superstitious mindset upon them.
"Antediluvian," truly; but if the phraseology of the text dates hardly a few centuries or even millenniums before the historical era, then it is no more the original prediction of the events to come, but, in its turn, a copy of some scripture of a prehistoric religion. . . . . "In the Krita age, Vishnu, in the form of Kapila and other (inspired sages) . . . imparts to the world true wisdom as Enoch did. In the Treta age he restrains the wicked, in the form of a universal monarch (the Chakravartin or the 'Everlasting King' of Enoch*) and protects the three worlds (or races). In the Dwapara age, in the person of Veda-Vyasa, he divides the one Veda into four, and distributes it into hundreds (Sata) of branches." Truly so; the Veda of the earliest Aryans, before it was written, went forth into every nation of the Atlanto-Lemurians, and sowed the first seeds of all the now existing old religions. The off-shoots of the never dying tree of wisdom have scattered their dead leaves even on Judaeo-Christianity. And at the end of the Kali, our present age, Vishnu, or the "Everlasting King" will appear as Kalki, and re-establish righteousness upon earth. The minds of those who live at that time shall be awakened, and become as pellucid as crystal. "The men who are thus changed by virtue of that peculiar time (the sixth race) shall be as the seeds of other human beings, and shall give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita age of purity"; i.e., it shall be the seventh race, the race of "Buddhas," the "Sons of God," born of immaculate parents.
The establishment of the Enochian Entities into the spiritual fabric of our race is a metaphor for our own evolution. This is where the potency of Enochian Magick becomes so readily apparent. By connecting this, our time, to the primordial origins of the spiritual current in our collective and individual nature, a psychic change is inaugurated. This is that 'fresh fever from the skies' and could affect humanity quite profoundly.
In reference to the importance of the Hebrew legend, Enoch, it was said that he walked with God. Further, he was raised into the spiritual realm without tasting death; becoming the Archangel, Metatron.
Enochian literature proliferated in the first century of the Christian era, of which Yeshua bar Yosef (the would-be messiah upon which Jesus Christ would be modelled in the New Testament) would have been familiar; likely counting such scriptures as equal to those of the prophets.
Many of the scriptures in use at that time were destroyed in the Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 ev. Up to that point, all this Enochian literature was generally accepted by the eschatological Pharisees, who believed in spirits , angels and an afterlife, while being opposed by the temple priesthood; the Sadducees. The interest for those interested in the literature was in attaining the same state as Enoch, so that one would never see death and would be raised into the spiritual plane.
When this is accounted for and the Merkabah tradition is understood in its proper context; only then can we find value in the work of Dee & Kelly and later, of course, Crowley. But Crowley didn't take his cues directly from Dee & Kelly; rather, Enochiana and all that it implies, was the central secret of the Golden Dawn, which means its roots go deeply into the Western Mystery Tradition.
One climbs onto the mystical Chariot (Merkabah; cf. Crowley’s essay on the Chariot Atu) and proceeds to the Hekaloth (the seven heavens or astral plane). The 'fall,' as interpreted by the Golden Dawn was a descent into incarnation; manifesting on the material plane. The 'original sin' is that the infinite becomes finite; that the ONE becomes the ALL. And to be finite is to take on imperfection; the "shame of Khem." (cf. Liber LXV, cap. 2)
Further on in HPBs Secret Doctrine, Vol. IV, Section 4, we read:
The Egyptians and the Chaldeans referred the birth of their divine Dynasties to that period when creative Earth was in her last final throes, in giving birth to her prehistoric mountain ranges, which have since disappeared, her seas and her continents. Her face was covered with "deep Darkness and in that (Secondary) Chaos was the principle of all things" that developed on the globe later on. And our geologists have ascertained that there was such a terrestrial conflagration in the early geological periods, several hundred millions of years ago. (Astronomy, however, knows nothing of stars that have disappeared unless from visibility, never from existence, since the Science of Astronomy became known. Temporary stars are only variable stars, and it is believed even that the new stars of Kepler and Tycho Brahe may still be seen.) As to the tradition itself, every country and nation had it, each under its respective national form.
We have here a description of the origins of BABALON. She emerges out of the great N.O.X.; the sacred harlot who is forever a virgin. The symbolic subtlety in this overtly contradictory assertion warrants much when considering the chant of the Babe of the Abyss: "In Nomine Babalon, Amen. Restriction unto Choronzon."
It is not alone Egypt, Greece, Scandinavia or Mexico, that had their Typhon, Python, Loki and its "falling" Demon, but China, also. The Celestials have a whole literature upon the subject. In King, it is said that in consequence of a rebellion against Ti of a proud Spirit who said he was Ti himself, seven choirs of celestial spirits were exiled upon earth, which "brought a change in all nature, heaven itself bending down and uniting with earth."
AL:I.26 "Then saith the prophet and slave of the beauteous one: Who am I. and what shall be the sign? So she answered him, bending down, a lambent flame of blue, all-touching, all penetrant, her lovely hands upon the black earth, & her lithe body arched for love, and her soft feet not hurting the little flowers: Thou knowest! And the sign shall be my ecstasy, the consciousness of the continuity of existence, the omnipresence of my body."
And we have a description of NUIT bending down to kiss the Earth. She is as she says in AL:I.60.
AL:I.60 "My number is 11, as all their numbers who are of us. The Five Pointed Star, with a Circle in the Middle, & the circle is Red. My colour is black to the blind, but the blue & gold are seen of the seeing. Also I have a secret glory for them that love me."
Her position on the Tree, in the Dark Sea of Binah shows her to be an aspect of that which is also called BABALON and who was one of the Beasts of Revelation.
And in the "Y-King," one reads: "The flying Dragon, superb and rebellious, suffers now, and his pride is punished; he thought he would reign in heaven, he reigns only on the earth."
Again, the Tchoon-Tsieoo says allegorically: "one night the stars ceased shining in darkness, and deserted it, falling down like rain upon the earth, where they are now hidden." These stars are the Monads.
AL:II.62: "I am uplifted in thine heart; and the kisses of the stars rain hard upon thy body."
The parallel, pseudpegriphic legend of the fall of Lucifer (the Holy Guardian Agnel) and his legions forms the basis for a theory of equialence between these and the Enochian Entities. Each would be a star in a company of stars, as per AL:I.2-3.
AL:I.2 "The unveiling of the company of heaven."
AL:I.3 "Every man and every woman is a star."
That these legions would each be considered to belong to humanity; one assigned to each and every human being, represents them as Monads or Augoeides.
We are also reminded of some verses from Cap. 1 of Liber LXV:
LXV:I.19 “Therefore, O my darling, art thou black.”
LXV:I.20 “O my beautiful, I have likened thee to a jet Nubian slave, a boy of melancholy eyes.”
LXV:I.21 “O the filthy one! the dog! they cry against thee. Because thou art my beloved.”
Crowley's comment for vs. 19-21
V.V.V.V.V. being perfectly Adeptus Minor appears evil.
Hence, the demonization of Lucifer makes perfect sense in populist religion, which is generally devoid of spirit and largely an exponent of the social morality of each era in human history. This captures and maintains a darkness of mind in its individual adherents; serving the socio-political power structure.
LXV:I.22 “Happy are they that praise thee; for they see thee with Mine eyes.”
Motta's comment: Those who praise an Adept, instead of condemning and persecuting him, have reached an equivalent level of insight. They see from the perspective Tiphereth, not from any lower perspective.
LXV:I.23 “Not aloud shall they praise thee; but in the night watch one shall steal close, and grip thee with the secret grip; another shall privily cast a crown of violets over thee; a third shall greatly dare, and press mad lips to thine.”
LXV:I.24 “Yea! the night shall cover all, the night shall cover all.”
We can connect the “night” of the above verse with the darkness that is found in Tchooh-Tsleoo’s allegorical saying, above; and also with LXV:II.4. This is Babalon’s reign in her aspect, as Gaia.
LXV:II.4 “Stooping down, dipping my wings, I came unto the darkly-splendid abodes. There in that formless abyss was I made a partaker of the Mysteries Averse.”
Chinese cosmogonies have their "Lord of the Flame" and their "Celestial Virgin," with little "Spirits to help and minister to her; and big Spirits to fight those who are the enemies of other gods." But all this does not prove that the said allegories are presentments or prophetic writings which all refer to Christian theology.
The best proof one can offer to Christian Theologians that the esoteric meaning in the Bible -- in both Testaments -- was the assertion of the same idea as in our Archaic teachings -- to wit, that the "Fall of the Angels" referred simply to the incarnation of angels "who had broken through the Seven Circles" -- is found in the Zohar. Now the Kabala of Simeon Ben Iochai is the soul and essence of its allegory, as the later Christian Kabala is the "dark cloaked" Mosaic Pentateuch. And it says (in the Agrippa MSS.):
"The wisdom of the Kabala rests in the science of the equilibrium and Harmony."
"Forces that manifest without having been first equilibrized perish in space" ("equilibrized" meaning differentiated).
"Thus perished the first Kings (the Divine Dynasties) of the ancient world, the self-produced Princes of giants. They fell like rootless trees, and were seen no more: for they were the Shadow of the Shadow"; to wit, the chhaya of the Shadowy Pitris. (Vide about the "Kings of Edom.")
AL:I.59 “My incense is of resinous woods & gums; and there is no blood therein: because of my hair the trees of Eternity.”
The difference between differentiated consciousness (microcosm) and non-differentiated consciousness (macrocosm) is essential. The spirit or non-differentiated consciousness seeks annihilation, as championed by the Yellow School of Magick. Whereas the soul, built up from the union of body, mind and spirit seeks equilibration. Such differentiation, per HPB’s quote above, shows the importance of self-actualization of the individualized psyche (mind and emotions). The spirit is already immortal, as it oringates outside the plane of duality. It is the soul that strives for immortality, as a psychic potency reflected in the concept of self-actualization. This, I have referred to as a congealing of the soul; without which, upon death of the body, the soul will fade away into the Aethyr.
"But those that came after them, who shooting down like falling stars were enshrined in the shadows -- prevailed and to this day": Dhyanis, who by incarnating in those "empty shadows," inaugurated the era of mankind.
Every sentence in the ancient cosmogonies, unfolds to him who can read between the lines the identity of the ideas, though under different garbs.
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