Preface By the Master Therion
During the last two generations the Masters of the Yellow School have
been compelled to take notice of the progressive ruin of the White
adepts. Christianity, which possessed at least the semblance of a White
formula, is in the agonies of decomposition, even before it is actually
dead. Materialistic science has overwhelmed the faith and hope of the
Christians (they never possessed any charity to overwhelm) with a
demonstration of the sorrow, transitoriness and cruel futility of the
Universe.
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.
_______________________________________________________________________
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.