A H A

                by

            Aleister Crowley

            Commentary

                by

            Israel Regardie

            1 9 8 3

        F a l c o n P r e s s
P h o e n i x, A r i z o n a 8 5 0 1 2, U.S.A.
Copyright 1983 by The Israel Regardie Foundation


            A H A

    AHA! THE Sevenfold Mystery of THE Ineffable Love;
THE Coming of THE Lord IN THE AIR AS King AND Judge
        OF THIS CORRUPTED World;
            WHEREIN
UNDER THE FORM OF A DISCOURSE BETWEEN MARSYAS AN ADEPT
AND OLYMPAS HIS PUPIL THE WHOLE SECRET OF THE WAY OF
INITIATION IS LAID OPEN FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END;
FOR THE INSTRUCTION OF THE LITTLE CHILDREN OF THE LIGHT.

WRITTEN IN THE TREMBLING AND HUMILITY FOR THE BRETHREN
OF THE A .'. A .'. BY THEIR VERY DUTIFUL SERVANT, AN
        ASPIRANT TO THEIR SUBLIME ORDER,
            ALEISTER CROWLEY


            DEDICATED
                TO
            URSULA GREVILLE

        loving, generous, devoted friend
        of many long years who, like
        Aleister Crowley, changed the
        entire course of my life.


            COMMENTARY
        by: Israel Regardie

To have chosen so unlikely a title as AHA! for an almost
epic poem about mysticism must require a strangely
constituted mind. And this, of course, is supremely applicable
to Aleister Crowley, an English poet born in Leamington
in the year 1875. As a result of many years of concentrated
study of comparative religions, mythology, mysticism of
every variety and magical practices picked up in remote
parts of the world, his mind had developed into a highly
intricate mnemonic apparatus. One word or phrase would
immediately serve as a trigger to set into a lifelong col-
lection of fascinating ideas. For the most part they would
stagger any newcomer to his innumerable writings.
The world AHA! had come to have innumerable meanings
for him. Some were derived from the Qabalah which
he had studied through the Hermetic Order of the Golden
Dawn. It has a gematria or numerical value of seven,
relates to the sphere of Venus on the Tree of Life,
and the element Fire. In one Tarot document of that
Order, the sevens are described as showing "a force,
transcending the material plane, and is like unto
a crown which is indeed powerful but requireth one
capable of wearing it."
Other associations had their origins in the Bible, of
which he had long been a chosen student - especially the
Revelation of ST. John. This is indicated, for example, in
the subtitle which Crowley chose for this poem, part of
which follows: "The sevenfold mystery of the ineffable
love: the coming of the Lord in the Air as King and Judge
of this corrupted world . . ." The major pitfall where he
became trapped was in the assumption that the ordinary
reader's mind would be equally informed as was his, or
that it would function similarly to his. Of course this
was hardly the case.
The historical sequence of events behind the creation
of this work is fascinating. First of all, inasmuch as the
Golden Dawn was mentioned, it should be stated that this
Order, founded in the year 1887, was an outgrowth of some
earlier English Masonic organizations. In an unknown
manner, these made contact with some European societies
having possible Rosicrucian connections. Since that time,
the Order has exerted a greater influence on the growth
and dissemination of occultism than most students realize.
It's membership was recruited from every circle, and
included physicians, clergymen, artists and humble men and
wo8men from all walks of life.
As an organization, it preferred always to shroud itself
in an impenetrable cloak of mystery. Its teaching and
methods of instructions were stringently guarded by
various penalties attached to the most awe-inspiring
obligations in order to ensure that secrecy. So well were
these obligations respected, with but a couple of
exceptions, that for years the general public knew nothing
about the Order and what it stood for. It is now common
knowledge that S. L. McGregor Mathers, William Wynn
Westcott, W. B. Yeats, Arthur Machen, A. E. Waite,
Florence Farr and Dion Fortune were members, together with
a good many other writers and artists.
Crowley was initiated into this Order towards the close
of the year 1898. He made rapid strides in advancement.
But the really significant event during his membership was
meeting one of its advanced adept members named Allan
Bennett. He took the young poet under his wing, educating
him into the intricacies of Qabalah and Magic in all
phases. Allan was a good teacher, for the traces of his
instruction appear in almost everything that Crowley wrote.
A revolt broke out within the Order, splitting it wide
open. Allen Bennett went to the East, adopting the
Buddhist faith with the new name of Bhikhu Ananda Metteya.
Crowley left England to go mountain-climbing in Mexico with
Oscar Eckenstein, a famous mountain-climber of that period.
They planned an assault on one of the lofty peaks of the
Himalayas . Eckenstein was to return to England to make
all arrangements for the climb, since he was to be in
charge of the expedition.
Crowley, on his way to the Himalayas, stopped off first
in Ceylon, ostensibly to meet once more his former teacher,
Allan Bennett. However, while in Ceylon, they both settled
down to an intense practice of Yoga under the supervision
of Shri Parananda, the former Solicitor General of Ceylon.
This bout of Yoga practice culminated for Crowley in an
illumination known as Dhyana.
When he came to write AHA! this Dhyana was described at
some length. A part of that writing is:

    "Again,
    The adept secures his subtle fence
    Against the hostile shafts of sense,
    Pins for a second his mind; as you
    May have seen some huge wrestler do.
    Resistless as the whirling world,
    He holds his foeman to the floor
    For one great moment and no more.
    So-then the sun-blaze. All the night
    Bursts to a vivid orb of light.
    There is no shadow; nothing is,
    But the intensity of bliss.
    Being is blasted. That exists."

This man Crowley is such a paradox. One would have
thought that having reached this stage of enlightenment,
he would have persevered further. On the contrary, he
discarded all yoga practices, resumed mountain climbing,
failed in the assault against a high Himalayan peak, and
returned to England rather disgusted and dejected.
An artist friend of his, Gerald Kelly - who later became
president of the Royal Academy - arranged to introduce
Crowley to his sister Rose. She was about to get married to
a man for whom she cared little. While discouraging her to
proceed with this marriage, Crowley impulsively proposed to
her - and forthwith they eloped.
Married life was a deliriously happy period of exultant
eroticism, wide travelling and a variety of expeditions and
hunting trips with his wife. Early in the year 1904, during
a safari in Ceylon, Rose became pregnant. At once Crowley
called off the hunt and decided to return to England, stop-
ping off on the way in Cairo, mostly to avoid the inclement
weather of England. By this time, according to his own
account, he had renounced altogether his earlier interests in
magical and yoga procedures, living for the moment the life
of an ordinary English family man.
However, it was during their stay in Cairo that a most
remarkable series of events occurred, Rose, who was a devoted
and superficial socialite when Crowley first met her,
spontaneously developed a psychic or mediumistic talent.
During this bout of psychism, she told Crowley that "They are
waiting for you." Though he was then enamoured of his wife,
he had very little respect for her intellectual abilities or
her psychic gifts. Having given up magic and yoga, he was a
confirmed sceptic and free-thinker, so he subjected her toe a
battery of tests based on his own knowledge and former magical
experience.
The full account of this altogether remarkable episode has been
narrated in full in Crowley's book The Equinox of the Gods. I
have also discussed this in my biographical study of him entitled
The Eye in the Triangle (Llewellyn Publications, St. Paul, Minn.
1969). A long story is unnecessary here. Suffice it to say that
every day for three days he was instructed to sit alone in the
living room of their Cairo apartment. For one full hour on each
of three successive days beginning on April 7th, a Voice dictated
to him what was called The Book of the Law, sometimes written as
Liber Al vel Legis.
This document enunciated a series of new moral, religious,
mystical and philosophical dogmas. Some of these he was already
familiar with and could accept without equivocation. Many
passages dealt with the teachings of the Golden Dawn whose rituals
were announced as abrogate and out of touch with the dawning new
age. Others were so revolutionary and distasteful to him that he
responded to this extraordinary psychic experience with a classic
Freudian mechanism. He buried the holograph manuscript amongst a
host of miscellaneous materials stored in the attic of his house
of Boleskine, Scotland, and then promptly forgot all about it.
It is still unclear as to why he really rejected The Book of the
Law. True, it did praise him to the skies. It called him a
prophet who was a revealer of a New Aeon dawning for mankind.
"Blessing and worship to the prophet of the lovely Star."
A modest man might easily have been offended by this unequivocal
aggrandisement of the ego. But Crowley was under no circumstances
a modest, retiring sort of creature, despite the fact that
theoretically he realized the fallacies of an ego-oriented
philosophy as AHA! clearly shows.

"......... Cease to strive!
Destroy this partial I, this moan
Of an hurt beast! .......
Indeed, that "I" that is not God
Is but a lion in the road!"

The consideration of his personal history makes it abundantly
evident that his ego was considerably hypertrophied. He was
ambitious, brilliant and egotistical - and had every natural
ability to fulfil those ambitions.
He was intrinsically a rebel. This characteristic had its roots
in the fanatical religious training that was ridiculously imposed
upon him by his parents, advocates of a sect known as the Plymouth
Brethren. He never fully recovered from his initial antagonism to
their stupidity; it made him a vicious rebel against any and every
kind of orthodox religiosity. There is hardly a piece of his
voluminous writing free of this sneering hostility to
Christianity, which he was never able to differentiate from mere
churchianity.
He had a highly adventurous spirit, and loved taking chances,
pitting himself against what appeared to be over-whelming odds.
As a boy he had been sick and weakly. At several of the English
public schools to which he had been sent, he was a natural target
of the bully. Smouldering resentment, aided finally by the wise
instruction of a tutor in his mid-adolescence, enabled him to
stand up for himself and give a good account of himself.
I am certain it was this that turned him in the direction of
mountain climbing and wild adventure so that he could prove to the
world, but mainly to himself, that he was not a weak coward. So
he climbed the Alps, the Mexican volcanoes, the Himalayas, walked
across the Sahara desert, hunted big game all over the world, and
carried on extensive research and complicated experiments with
drugs and meditation and magic. He could hardly be called an
insignificant person.
Despite this, he was a lonely man. He knew this, and exulted in
the solitary aspects of his life. Later, after he found a private
inner world through his mystical experiences, he considered
himself Alastor, the Spirit of Solitude, the Wanderer of the
Wastes.
Yet he was an egotist. He never shirked from the omnipresent
urge to seek publicity, at no time caring whether it was good, bad
or indifferent, so long as it was publicity.
At the same time, he was a snob. Though he sneered at the
British landed gentry, it is clear that he yearned to have been
one of them. There are several references in his writing
indicating that, though he came of upper middle-class
trades people, a family of successful brewers in on section of
England, he arrogated to himself the fiction of aristocracy. He
was not content to consider himself a peer in the higher ranks of
the aristocracy of the spirit.
He played at disappearing in the heart of London, assuming nom-
de-plumes that would assure secrecy or anonymity. A good sample
is the Count de Swareff! Early in the century, he was involved,
though distantly, in an attempted Spanish uprising, for which Don
Carlos knighted him - quite meaninglessly. When I knew crowley,
his calling cards bore a small coronet and "Sir Aleister Crowley."
In 1904, during his visit to Cairo, he could not register at the
hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Aleister Crowley. That would have been far
too prosaic. Instead, he chose Prince Chia Khan (pronounced Hiwa
Khan). He was honest enough to write that he "wanted to swagger
about in a turban with a diamond aigrette and sweeping silken
robes or a coat of cloth-of-gold, with a jeweled talwar by my
side, and two gorgeous runners to clear the way for my carriage
through the streets of Cairo ...."
In defending himself, he had no hesitancy in fighting with every
means at his disposal, even "playing dirty" when it suited him.
This succeeded at all times, save against some of the more
miserable journalists and muckrakers who delighted in distorting
his every departure from the conventional norm of Victorian
England. there he was beaten. Having no defenses at all against
this vilification, he developed an iron-clad complacency as his
character-mask to conceal his squeamishness and his outraged sense
of hurt.
In spite of all this, he withdrew from the world-shaking role
depicted for him in 'The Book of the Law;' he would not accept it.
for five years he went about his business - being a husband and
father, a writer of many poetic works, a mountain climber of a
second Himalayan expedition, etc. - as if he had never been the
recipient of a new revelation. but slowly and as it were
piecemeal, the praeter-human agencies behind the dictation of this
magical document slowly wore down his stubborn resistance. One
seemingly accidental phenomenon after another occurred with
dreadful frequency until at last he became willing to assume the
mantle of prophet that had been cast upon him.
One day, while hunting on behalf of a friend for a pair of skis
in the attic of his house in Scotland, he suddenly fell upon the
manuscript of 'The Book of the Law'. He was overwhelmed. It was
as if this unwanted discovery in the year 1909 were the last
straw. In a spontaneous act of wonder as well as submission, he
fell in line. He accepted the responsibilities that were spelled
out in detail in this document. One of the several results
ensuing from this conversion-like acceptance was the writing of
AHA!
In this lengthly poem, he attempted to tie together a number of
loose threads in his life, as well as to affirm the supreme fact
that he was a messenger bearing a message. The poem described in
great fullness and with extraordinary power and eloquence the
mystical path in all its varieties that he was familiar with from
a practical and experimental point of view. The eight limbs of
Yoga are described in a long paragraph, which incidentally has
been used by many writers without the least bit of acknowledgement
This paragraph begins:

"There are seven keys to the great gate,
Being eight in one and one in eight ...."

And ends with:

"....... I leave thee here;
thou art the Master. I revere
Thy radiance that rolls afar,
O Brother of the Silver Star!"

This followed by some descriptions of the early phases of
magical practice, particularly that called in the Golden Dawn
"skrying in the spirit vision," which, pursued properly to its
logical end, may lead to higher mystical states:

"The first true sights. Bright images
Throng the clear mind at first, a crowd
Of Gods, lights, armies, landscapes; loud
Reververations of the Light.
but these are dreams, things in the mind,
No rest therein. Thou shalt find
No rest therein. The former three
(Lightning, moon, sun) are royally
Liminal to the Hall of Truth.
Also there be with them in sooth,
Their brethren, There's the vision called
the Lion of the Light, a brand
Of ruby flame and emerald
Waved by the Hermeneutic Hand.
There is the Chalice, whence the flood
Of God's beatitude of Blood
Flames. O to sing those starry tunes!
O colder than a million moons!
O vestal waters! Wine of love
Wan as the lyric soul thereof!
There is the Wind, a whirling sword,
The savage rapture of the air
tossed beyond space and time. My Lord,
My Lord, even now I see Thee there
In infinite Motion! And beyond
There is the Disk, the wheel of things;
Like a black boundless deamond
Whirring with millions of wings!"

This poem contains other descriptions of mystical states of
consciousness which are unique in the annals of religious
literature. I have in mind particularly the account of a
shattering experience which I believe occurred in 1906 or 1907
during or shortly after his walk through the southern part of
China near the present Vietnam border. this account bears
comparison with that of Sir Edwin Arnold's translation of' the
Bhagavad Gita' which is called 'The Song celestial'. In that
comparison, it may be said that Crowley's account does not come
off a poor second.

"Tell me thereof!
Oh not of this!
Of all the flowers in God's field
We name no this. Our lips are sealed
In that the Universal Key
Lieth within its mystery.
but know thou this. These visions give
A hint both faint and fugitive
Yet haunting, that behind them lurks
Some Worker, greater than His works ...
The infinite Lord of Light and Love
Breaks on the soul like dawn. See! See!
Great God of Might and Majesty!
Formless, all the worlds of flame
Atoms of that fiery frame!
The adept caught up and broken;
Slain, before His Name be spoken!
In that fire the soul burns up.
One drop from that celestial cup
Is an abyss, an infinite sea
That sucks up immortality!
O but the Self is manifest
Through all that blaze! Memory stumbles
Like a blind man for all the rest.
Speech, like a crag of limestone, crumbles,
While this one soul of thought is sure
through all confusion to endure,
Infinite Truth in one small span:
this that is God is Man."

There is also an account, brief to be sure, but hauntingly
beautiful, of the so-called Abramelin operation. This celebrated
magical retirement has its original description in 'The Book of
the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage,' translated from the
French many decades ago by McGregor Mathers, one of the original
chiefs of the Order of the Golden Dawn.
The author of this book is supposed to have been one Abraham, to
acknowledge the receipt of his system from an Egyptian named
Abramelin. There is undoubtedly mythology here, but that is
altogether unimportant. Regardless of its origin, its date and
its authorship, this work was found to be of value to some of the
adepts of the Golden Dawn and many other students. The author
makes no impossible demands such as are found in the fraudulent
grimoires concerning the blood of bats caught at midnight, or the
fourth feather from the left wing of a completely black cock, or
the stuffed eye of a virgin basilisk, and so on.
Though perhaps some of the requirements are difficult to follow,
there is always an excellent reason for their statement. They are
not intended to be subtle tests of the skill of the operator.
Certain preliminary prescriptions and injunctions need to be
observed, but these really amount to little more than common-sense
counsel, to observe decency in the performance of so august an
operation.
For example, one should possess a house where proper precautions
against disturbance and interference can be taken. This having
been arranged, there remains but little else to do. For six
months in privacy, the sole preoccupation is to aspire with
increasing concentration and ardor towards the Knowledge and
Conversation of the Holy guardian Angel.
It was in the year 1899 that Crowley originally began this
particular retirement. Nothing came of it at all, because
shortly after he started, the revolt broke out in earnest among
the rank and file members of the Golden Dawn. Upon hearing of
this, Crowley immediately terminated the operation and wired
McGregor Mathers offering his services and his fortune should they
be needed. Crowley found himself in the midst of a hornet's nest,
and was blamed for a great deal for which he had no responsibility
at all.
After his first Himalayan debacle, returning to England somewhat
dejected and dismayed, he met Rose Kelly and married her on the
spur of the moment. But it had been his intention to start the
operation a second time. It had been on his mind for three or four
years, in which time he had gained so much more magical and yoga
experience as to make him realize that his first attempt in that
direction would have resulted in failure because of a lack of
proper preparation. His preoccupation with his new wife was so
complete, however, that naturally there was neither time more
interest in anything else, including Abramelin.
The third attempt was made during the walk across the southern
boundaries of China. He was accompanied by his wife and child and
a faithful servant. There were times when one or the other was
ill, or some unforeseen but serious danger threatened. Yet
throughout a period of several months, perched on a small pony,
this strange and intrepid coward-hero was performing a complex
magical ceremony with ardor and enthusiasm. In a Temple not built
with hands, he had constructed the Abramelin environment astrally
in his trained imagination, to follow the lines of instruction he
had previously received while a member of the Order.

" And at the midnight thou shalt go
To the mid-streams' smoothest flow,
And strike upon a golden bell
The spirit's call; then say the spell:
'Angel, mine angel, draw thee nigh!'
Making the Sign of Magistry
with wand of lapis lazuli.
Then, it may be, through the blind dumb
Night thou shalt see thine angel come ...
He shall inform his happy lover;
My foolish prating shall be over!"

Foolish prating or not, the poem continues this early theme with
that which results from sincere and patient discipline.

"Angel, I invoke thee now!
Bend on me the starry brow!
Spread the eagle wings above
The pavilion of our love! ...
O Thou art like an Hawk of Gold,
Miraculously manifold,
For all the sky's aflame to be
A mirror magical of Thee!
the stars seem comets, rushing down
To gem thy robes, bedew thy crown.
Like the moon-plumes of a strange bird
By a great wind sublimely stirred,
thou drawest the light of all the skies
Into thy wake. The heaven dies
In bubbling froth of light, that foams
About thine ardour. All the domes
Of all the heavens close above thee
As thou art known of me who love thee.
Excellent kiss, thou fastenest on
This soul of mine, that it is gone,
Gone from all life, and rapt away
Into the infinite starry spray
Of thine own Aeon ... Alas for me!
I faint. Thy mystic majesty

Absorbs this spark."
Some of the lovely phrases and sentences in these quotations
from AHA! have been with me for many long years.

"Lie open, a chameleon cup,
And let Him suck thine honey up!"
and again,
"Angel, mine Angel, draw Thee nigh!"

These phrases, with another from an earlier mystical prose-poem
entitle 'Liber VII vel Lapidis Lazuli," were responsible forty
years ago for one of the premonitory religious or mystical
experiences of my burgeoning spiritual life.
There are dozens more. The aspirant who has been duly prepared
by life, experience and study will find his own cues to serve as
catalysts of the inner life. Each reader is bound to discover his
own individual set of stimuli. They are there for the finding.
The act of spiritual submission and acceptance was followed
immediately, not really by the writing of AHA! but by a trip to
the Sahara Desert with a disciple who acted as scribe. During
that solitary walk, Crowley would invoke every day, one of the
Aethyrs, an intrinsic part of the Enochian system of magic. Queen
Elizabeth's astrologer, Dr. John Dee, had developed this system in
collaboration with a notorious alchemist, Sir Edward Kelly. But
the Golden Dawn had taken over their crude and rudimentary system
and, with its customary genius, had transformed it into a
fantastically superb system which systematized and synthesized
every single component of its teaching.
After invoking the angels of the Aethyr, Crowley would then
enter a semi-trance, dictating what he heard and saw to his
disciple, Victor Neuburg, who would record it all. this record
later became 'The Vision and The Voice,' a most remarkable
spiritual document. It is important to mention it here, however,
because in the course of these daily invocations and apocalyptic
visions, 'The Book of the Law' was referred to again and again.
They confirmed his act of submission, and directed his attention
to the task confronting him.
It must have been about a year or so following this desert
experience that he set to work on the poetic clarification of what
he finally stood for. There are some references to the Sahara
episode in this poem, since it resulted in his second crossing of
the Abyss, the critical event in his spiritual life. It was then
that he chose the magical motto of V.V.V.V.V., which I familiarly
call five Vees.
This critical event in the spiritual life is not the "sweet and
light" phenomenon many amateur mystics would have us believe.
Even Dr. Carl G. Jung somewhere in his writing asserts that coming
to know God may be fraught with horror and terror before man will
let go of his ego. It is accompanied by a "coming apart at the
seams" of the mind.
All mystics of every age have described in various ways this
major disintegration, purgation or submission of the soul prior to
its confrontation with God in acquisition of cosmic consciousness.
Nowhere is it described so eloquently as the species of insanity
that it is as in our present poem.

"Black snare that I was taken in!
How one may pass I hardly know.
Maybe Time never blots the track.
black, black, intolerably black!
Go, spectre of the ages, go!
Suffice it that I passed beyond.
I found the secret of the bond
Of thought to thought through countless years,
through many lives, in many spheres,
Brought to a point the dark design
Of this existence that is me. All I was
I brought into the burning-glass
And all its focussed light and heat
Charred all I am. The rune's complete
When all I shall be flashes by
Like a shadow on the sky.
then I dropped my reasoning.
Vacant and accursed thing! ...."

It is only after the delineation of this crossing that he
proceeded to instruction in basic techniques, and finally to
expound the law as laid down in 'Liber Legis.'

"Do what thou wilt! is the sole word
Of Law that my attainment heard."

Here is given the central core of the 1904 revelation and to
which he devoted, in one way or another, the remaining years of
his life.

"Arise, and set a period
Unto Restriction! That is sin:
To hold thine holy spirit in !"

The rest of the epic deals with transcriptions and descriptions
of parts of the three chapters of that devastating Book.
The format of the poem consists of a dialogue between a teacher
Marsyas and his pupil, Olympas. Crowley provides a brief
description of his intent in a preliminary survey of the poem
called "The Argumentation." He opens this by stating:

"A little before Dawn, the pupil comes to greet his Master, and
begs instruction."

In passing, I ought to make note that in 1932, when I wrote 'The
Tree of Life ( Weiser Inc., New York, 1969 ) - which expressed my
comprehension of Crowley's magic up to that time - the dedication
was "To Marsyas, with poignant memory of what might have been."
In the course of the past three or four decades, I have met no one
who had the least inkling of the meaning of the dedication, which
simply means that this lovely poetic saga of Crowley's own
odyssey, to be found in Equinox III,was known to pitifully few
people. Actually it expressed sadness and regret on my part that
Crowley had not strictly attended to the magical training that was
promised me in 1928 when I had joined him in Paris. An easing of
that disappointment came later, when I realized that he was
temporarily in a state of what could be called spiritual pralaya
and some psycho-social disorganization resulting from the stresses
and strains of the previous years which included Mussolini
expelling him from Italy, ostensibly because of Masonic
connections.
However - to return to our poem. The dialogue form of
exposition does present some minor technical difficulties. I
cannot say that this particular format is the most adequate for
the purpose he had in mind. Nonetheless, these difficulties were
dealt with and overcome; they comprise minor criticism and more
insignificant defects.
The main body of the work is superb, including some powerful and
magnificent poetry which needs to be preserved for posterity to
whom, I hope, it will be as meaningful and inspirational as it has
to me.
                    Israel Regardie
August 22, 1969
Studio City, Calif.


            THE ARGUMENTATION

A LITTLE before Dawn, the pupil comes to greet his Master, and
begs instruction.
Inspired by his Angel, he demands the Doctrine of being rapt
away into the Knowledge and Conversation of Him.
The Master discloses the doctrine of Passive Attention or
Waiting.
This seeming hard to the Pupil, it is explained further, and the
Method of Resignation, Constancy, and Patience inculcated. The
Paradox of Equilibrium. The necessity of giving oneself wholly up
to the new element. Egoism rebuked.
The Master, to illustrate this Destruction of the Ego, describes
the Visions of Dhyana.
He further describes the defence of the Soul against assailing
Thoughts, and shows that the duality of Consciousness is a
blasphemy against the Unity of God; so that even the thought
called God is a denial of God-as-He-is-in-Himself.
The pupil sees nothing but a blank midnight in this Emptying of
the Soul. He is shown that this is the necessary condition of
Illumination. Distinction is further made between these three
Dhyanas, and those early visions in which things appear as
objective. With these three Dhyanas, moreover, are Four other of
the Four Elements: and many more.
Above these is the Veil of Paroketh. Its guardians.
The Rosy Cross lies beyond this veil, and therewith the vision
called Vishvarupadarshana. More over, there is the Knowledge and
Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.
The infinite number and variety of these Visions.
The impossibility of revealing all these truths to the outer and
uninitiated world.
The Vision of the Universal Peacock-Atmadarshana. The confusion
of the Mind, and the Perception of its self-contradiction.
The necessity to surmount Reason, as Reason has surmounted
Sense.
The Second Veil-the Veil of the Abyss.
The fatuity of speech.
A discussion as to the means by which the vision arises in the
pure Soul is useless; suffice it that in the impure Soul no vision
will arise. The practical course is therefore to cleanse the
Soul.
The four powers of the Sphinx; even adepts hardly attain to one
of them!
The final Destruction of the Ego.
The Master confesses that he has lured the disciple by the
promise of Joy, as the only thing comprehensible by him, although
pain and joy are transcended even in early visions.
Ananda (bliss)-and its opposite-mark the first steps of the
path. Ultimately all things are transcended; and even so, this
attainment of Peace is but as a scaffolding to the Palace of the
King.
The sheaths of the soul. The abandonment of all is necessary;
the adept recalls his own tortures, as all that he loved was torn
away.
The Ordeal of the Veil of the Abyss; the Unbinding of the Fabric
of Mind, and its ruin.
The distinction between philosophical credence and interior
certitude.
Sammasati-the trance wherein the adept perceives his causal
connection with the Universe; past, present, and future.
Mastering the Reason, he becomes as a little child, and invokes
his Holy Guardian Angel, the Augoeides.
Atmadarshana arising is destroyed by the Opening of the Eye of
Shiva; the annihilation of the Universe. The adept is destroyed,
and there arises the Master latter bids him rather unite himself
with the Augoeides.
Yet, following the great annihilation, the adept reappears as an
Angel to instruct men in this doctrine.
The Majesty of the Master described.
The pupil, wonder-struck, swears to attain, and asks for further
instruction.
The Master describes the Eight Limbs of Yoga.
The pupil lamenting the difficulty of attainment, the Master
shows forth the sweetness of the hermit's life.
One doubt remains: will not the world be able instantly to
recognize the Saint? The Master replies that only imperfect
Saints reveal themselves as such. Of these are the cranks and
charlatans, and those that fear and deny Life. But let us fix our
thoughts on Love, and not on the failings of others!
The Master invokes the Augoeides; the pupil through sympathy is
almost rapt away.
The Augoeides hath given the Master a message; namely, to
manifest the New Way of the Equinox of Horus, as revealed in Liber
Legis.
He does so, and reconciles it with the Old way by inviting the
Test of Experiment. They would go therefore to the Desert or the
Mountains-nay! here and now shall it be accomplished.
Peace to all beings!

            AHA

OLYMPAS. Master, ere the ruby Dawn
    Gild the dew of leaf and lawn,
    Bidding the petals to unclose
    Of heaven's imperishable rose,
    I come to greet thee. Here I bow
    To earth this consecrated brow!
    As a lover woos the Moon
    Aching in a silver swoon,
    I reach my lips towards thy shoon,
    Mendicant of the mystic boon!
MARSYAS. What wilt thou?
OLYMPAS. Let mine Angel say!
    "Utterly to be rapt away!"
MARSYAS. How, whence, and whither?
OLYMPAS. "By my kiss
    From that abode to this - to this!"
    My wings?
MARSYAS. Thou hast no wings. But see
    An eagle sweeping from the Byss
    Where God stands. Let him ravish thee,
    And bear thee to a boundless bliss!
OLYMPAS. How should I call him? How beseech?
MARSYAS. Silence is lovelier than Speech.
    Only on a windless tree
    Falls the dew, Felicity!
    One ripple on the water mars
    The magic mirror of the Stars.
OLYMPAS. My soul bends to the athletic stress
    Of God's immortal loveliness.
    Tell me, what wit avails the clod
    To know the nearness of its God?
MARSYAS. First, let the soul be poised, and fledge
    Truth's feather on mind's razor-edge.
    Next, let no memory, feeling, hope
    Stain all its starless horoscope.
    Last, let it be content, twice void ;
    Not to be suffered or enjoyed ;
    Motionless, blind and deaf and dumb-
    So may it to its kingdom come!
OLYMPAS. Dear master, can this be? The wine
    Embittered with dark discipline?
    For the soul loves her mate, the sense.
MARSYAS. This bed is sterile. Thou must fence
    Thy soul from all her foes, the creatures
    That by their soft and siren natures
    Lure thee to shipwreck!
OLYMPAS. Thou hast said :
    "God is in all."
MARSYAS. In sooth.
OLYMPAS. Why dread
    The Godhood?
MARSYAS. Only as the thought
    Is God, adore it. But the soul creates
    Misshapen fiends, incestuous mates.
    Slay these : they are false shadows of
    The never-waning moon of love.
OLYMPAS. What thought is worthy?
MARSYAS. Truly none
    Save one, in that it is but one.
    Keep the mind constant ; thou shalt see
    Ineffable felicity.
    Increase the will, and thou shalt find
    It hath the strength to be resigned.
    Resign the will ; and from the string
    Will's arrow shall have taken wing,
    And from the desolate abode
    Found the immaculate heart of God!
OLYMPAS. The word is hard!
MARSYAS. All things excite
    Their equal and their opposite.
    Be great, and thou shalt be-how small!
    Be naught, and thou shalt be the All!
    Eat not ; all meat shall fill thy mouth :
    Drink and thy soul shall die of drouth!
    Fill thyself ; and that thou seekest
    Is diluted to its weakest.
    Empty thyself ; the ghosts of night
    Flee before the living Light.
    Who clutches straws is drowned ; but he
    That hath the secret of the sea,
    Lives with the whole lust of his limbs,
    Takes hold of water's self, and swims.
    See, the ungainly albatross
    Stumbles awkwardly across
    Earth-one wing - beat, and he flies
    Most graceful gallant in the skies!
    So do thou leave thy thoughts, intent
    On thy new noble element!
    Throw the earth shackles off, and cling
    To what imperishable thing
    Arises from the married death
    Of thine own self in that whereon
    Thou art fixed.
OLYMPAS. Then all life's loyal breath
    Is a waste wind. All joy foregone,
    I must strive ever?
MARSYAS. Cease to strive!
    Destroy this partial I, this moan
    Of an hurt beast! Sores keep alive
    By scratching. Health is peace. Unknown
    And unexpressed because at ease
    Are the Most High Congruities.
OLYMPAS. Then death is thine "attainment"? I
    Can do no better than to die!
MARSYAS. Indeed, that "I" that is not God
    Is but a lion in the road!
    Knowest thou not (even now!) how first
    The fetters of Restriction burst?
    In the rapture of the heart
    Self hath neither lot nor part.
OLYMPAS. Tell me, dear master how the bud
    First breaks to brilliance of bloom ;
    What ecstasy of brain and blood
    Shatters the seal upon the tomb
    Of him whose gain was the world's loss,
    Our father Christian Rosycross!
MARSYAS. First, one is like a gnarled old oak
    On a waste heath. Shrill shrieks the wind.
    Night smothers earth. Storm swirls to choke
    The throat of silence! Hard behind
    Gathers a blacker cloud than all.
    But look! but look! it thrones a ball
    Of blistering fire. It breaks. The lash
    Of lightning snakes him forth. One crash
    Splits the old tree. One rending roar!-
    And night is darker than before.
OLYMPAS. Nay, master, master! Terror hath
    So fierce an hold upon the path?
    Life must lie crushed, a charred black swath,
    In that red harvest's aftermath!
MARSYAS. Life lives. Storm passes. Clouds dislimn.
    The night is clear. And now to him
    Who hath endured is given the boon
    Of an immeasurable moon.
    The air about the adept congeals
    To crystal ; in his heart he feels
    One needle pang ; then breaks that splendour
    Infinitely pure and tender . . .
    -And the ice drags him down!
OLYMPAS. But may
    Our trembling frame, our clumsy clay,
    Endure such anguish?
MARSYAS. In the worm
    Lurks an unconquerable germ
    Identical. A sparrow's fall
    Were the Destruction of the All!
    More ; know that this surpasses skill
    To express its ecstasy. The thrill
    Burns in the memory like the glory
    Of some far beaconed promontory
    Where no light shines but on the comb
    Of breakers, flickerings of the foam!
OLYMPAS. The path ends here?
MARSYAS. Ingenuous one!
    The path-the true path-scarce begun.
    When does the night end?
OLYMPAS. When the sun,
    Crouching below the horizon,
    Flings up his head, tosses his mane,
    Ready to leap.
MARSYAS. Even so. Again
    The adept secures his subtle fence
    Against the hostile shafts of sense,
    Pins for a second his mind ; as you
    May have seen some huge wrestler do.
    With all his gathered weight heaped, hurled,
    Resistless as the whirling world,
    He holds his foeman to the floor
    For one great moment and no more.
    So-then the sun - blaze! All the night
    Bursts to a vivid orb of light.
    There is no shadow ; nothing is,
    But the intensity of bliss.
    Being is blasted. That exists.
OLYMPAS. Ah!
MARSYAS. But the mind, that mothers mists,
    Abides not there. The adept must fall
    Exhausted.
OLYMPAS. There's an end of all?
MARSYAS. But not an end of this! Above
    All life as is the pulse of love,
    So this transcends all love.
OLYMPAS. Ah me!
    Who may attain?
MARSYAS. Rare souls.
OLYMPAS. I see
    Imaged a shadow of this light.
MARSYAS. Such is its sacramental might
    That to recall it radiates
    Its symbol. The priest elevates
    The Host, and instant blessing stirs
    The hushed awaiting worshippers.
OLYMPAS. Then how secure the soul's defence?
    How baffle the besieger, Sense?
MARSYAS. See the beleaguered city, hurt
    By hideous engines, sore begirt
    And gripped by lines of death, well scored
    With shell, nigh open to the sword!
    Now comes the leader ; courage, run
    Contagious through the garrison!
    Repair the trenches! Man the wall!
    Restore the ruined arsenal!
    Serve the great guns! The assailants blench ;
    They are driven from the foremost trench.
    The deadliest batteries belch their hell
    No more. So day by day fought well,
    We silence gun by gun. At last
    The fiercest of the fray is past ;
    The circling hills are ours. The attack
    Is over, save for the rare crack,
    Long dropping shots from hidden forts;-
    -So is it with our thoughts!
OLYMPAS. The hostile thoughts, the evil things!
    They hover on majestic wings,
    Like vultures waiting for a man
    To drop from the slave-caravan!
MARSYAS. All thoughts are evil. Thought is two:
    The seer and the seen. Eschew
    That supreme blasphemy, my son,
    Remembering that God is One.
OLYMPAS. God is a thought!
MARSYAS. The thought of God
    Is but a shattered emerod ;
    A plague, an idol, a delusion,
    Blasphemy, schism, and confusion!
OLYMPAS. Banish my one high thought? The night
    Indeed were starless.
MARSYAS. Very right!
    But that impalpable inane
    Is the condition of success ;
    Even as earth lies black to gain
    Spring's green and autumn's fruitfulness.
OLYMPAS. I dread this midnight of the soul.
MARSYAS. Welcome the herald!
OLYMPAS. How control
    The horror of the mind? The insane
    Dead melancholy?
MARSYAS. Trick is vain.
    Sheer manhood must support the strife,
    And the trained Will, the Root of Life,
    Bear the adept triumphant.
OLYMPAS. Else?
MARSYAS. The reason, like a chime of bells
    Ripped by the lightning, cracks.
OLYMPAS. And these
    Are the first sights the magus sees?
MARSYAS. The first true sights. Bright images
    Throng the clear mind at first, a crowd
    Of Gods, lights, armies, landscapes ; loud
    Reverberations of the light.
    But these are dreams, things in the mind,
    Reveries, idols. Thou shalt find
    No rest therein. The former three
    (Lightning, moon, sun) are royally
    Liminal to the Hall of Truth.
    Also there be with them, in sooth,
    Their brethren. There's the vision called
    The Lion of the Light, a brand
    Of ruby flame and emerald
    Waved by the Hermeneutic Hand.
    There is the Chalice, whence the flood
    Of God's beatitude of blood
    Flames. O to sing those starry tunes!
    O colder than a million moons!
    O vestal waters! Wine of love
    Wan as the lyric soul thereof!
    There is the Wind, a whirling sword,
    the savage rapture of the air
    Tossed beyond space and time. My Lord,
    My lord, even now I see Thee there
    In infinite motion! And beyond
    There is the Disk, the wheel of things;
    Like a black boundless diamond
    Whirring with millions of wings!
OLYMPAS. Master!
MARSYAS. Know also that above
    These portents hangs no veil of love;
    But, guarded by unsleeping eyes
    Of twice seven score severities,
    The Veil that only rips apart
    when the spear strikes to Jesus' heart!
    A mighty Guard of Fire are they
    With sabres turning every way!
    Their eyes are millstones greater than
    The earth ; their mouths run seas of blood.
    Woe be to that accursed man
    Of whom they are the iniquities1
    Swept in their wrath's avenging flood
    To black immitigable seas!
    Woe to the seeker who shall fail
    To rend that vexful virgin veil!
    Fashion thyself by austere craft
    Into a single azure shaft
    Loosed from the string of Will ; behold
    The Rainbow! Thou art shot, pure flame,
    Past the reverberated Name
    Into the Hall of Death. Therein
    The Rosy Cross is subtly seen.
OLYMPAS. Is that a vision, then?
NARSYAS. It is.
OLYMPAS. Tell me Thereof!
MARSYAS. O not of this1
    Of all the flowers in God's field
    We name not this. Our lips are sealed
    In that the Universal Key
    Lieth within its mystery.
    But know thou this. These visions give
    A hint both faint and fugitive
    Yet haunting, that behind them lurks
    Some Worker, greater than His works.
   
    Yea, it is given to him who girds
    His loins up, is not fooled by words,
    Who takes life lightly in his hand
    To throw away at Will's command,
    To know that View beyond the Veil.
   
    O petty purities and pale,
    These visions I have spoken of!
    The infinite Lord of Light and Love
    Breaks on the soul like dawn. See! See!
    Great God of Might and Majesty!
    Beyond sense, beyond sight, a brilliance
    Burning from His glowing glance!
    Formless, all the worlds of flame
    Atoms of that fiery frame!
    The adept caught up and broken ;
    Slain, before His Name be spoken!
    In that fire the soul burns up.
    One drop from that celestial cup
    Is an abyss, an infinite sea
    That sucks up immortality!
    O but the Self is manifest
    Through all that blaze! Memory stumbles
    Like a blind man for all the rest.
    Speech, like a crag of limestone, crumbles,
    While this one soul of thought is sure
    Through all confusion to endure,
    Infinite Truth in one small span:
    This that is God is Man.
OLYMPAS. Master! I tremble and rejoice.
MARSYAS. Before His own authentic voice
    Doubt flees. The chattering choughs of talk
    Scatter like sparrows from a hawk.
OLYMPAS. Thenceforth the adept is certain of
    The mystic mountain? Light and LOve
    Are life therein, and they are his?
MARSYAS. Even so. And One supreme there is
    Whom I have known, being He. Withdrawn
    Within the curtains of the dawn
    Dwells that concealed. Behold! he is
    A blush, a breeze, a song, a kiss,
    A rosy flame like Love, his eyes
    Blue, the quintessence of all skies,
    His hair a foam of gossamer
    Pale gold as jasmine, lovelier
    Than all the wheat of Paradise.
    O the dim water-wells his eyes!
    There is such depth of Love in them
    That the adept is rapt away,
    Dies on that mouth, a gleaming gem
    Of dew caught in the boughs of Day!
OLYMPAS. The hearing of it is so sweet
    I swoon to silence at thy feet.
MARSYAS. Rise! Let me tell thee, knowing Him,
    The Path grows never wholly dim.
    Lose Him, and thou indeed wert lost!
    But He will not lose thee!
OLYMPAS. Exhaust
    The word!
MARSYAS. Had I a million songs,
    And every song a million words,
    And every word a million meanings,
    I could not count the choral throngs
    O Beauty's beatific birds,
    Or gather up the paltry gleanings
    Of this great harvest of delight!
    Hast thou not heard the word aright?
    That world is truly infinite.
    Even as a cube is to a square
    Is that to this.
OLYMPAS. Royal and rare!
    Infinite light of burning wheels!
MARSYAS. Ay! the imagination reels.
    Thou must attain before thou know,
    And when thou knowest-Mighty woe
    That silence grips the willing lips!
OLYMPAS. Ever was speech the thought's eclipse.
MARSYAS. Ay, not to veil the truth to him
    Who sought it, groping in the dim
    Halls of illusion, said the sages
    In all the realms, in all the ages,
    "Keep silence." By a word should come
    Your sight, and we who see are dumb!
    We have sought a thousand times to teach
    Our knowledge ; we are mocked by speech.
    So lewdly mocked, that all this word
    Seems dead, a cloudy crystal blurred,
    Though it cling closer to life's heart
    Than the best rhapsodies of art!
OLYMPAS. Yet speak!
MARSYAS. Ah, could I tell thee of
    These infinite things of Light and Love!
    There is the Peacock; in his fan
    Innumerable plumes of Pan!
    Oh! every plume hath countless eyes;
    -Crown of created mysteries!-
    Each holds a Peacock like the First.
OLYMPAS. How can this be?
MARSYAS. The mind's accurst.
    It cannot be. It is. Behold,
    Battalion on battalion rolled!
    There is war in Heaven! The soul sings still,
    Struck by the plectron of the Will;
    But the mind's dumb; its only cry
    The shriek of its last agony!
OLYMPAS. Surely it struggles.
MARSYAS. Bitterly!
    And, mark! it must be strong to die!
    The weak and partial reason dips
    One edge, another springs, as when
    A melting iceberg reels and tips
    Under the sun. Be mighty then,
    A lord of Thought, beyond wit and wonder
    Balanced-then push the whole mind under,
    Sunk beyond chance of floating, blent
    rightly with its own element,
    Not lifting jagged peaks and bare
    to the unsympathetic air!

    This is the second veil; and hence
    As first we slew the things of sense
    Upon the altar of their God,
    So must the Second Period
    Slay the ideas, to attain
    To that which is, beyond the brain.
OLYMPAS. To that which is?-not thought? not sense?
MARSYAS. Knowledge is but experience
    Made conscious of itself. The bee,
    Past master of geometry,
    Hath not one word of all of it;
    For wisdom is not mother-wit!
    So the adept is called insane
    For his frank failure to explain.
    Language creates false thoughts; the true
    Breed language slowly. Following
    Experience of a thing we knew
    Arose the need to name the thing.
    So, ancients likened a man's mind
    To the untamed evasive wind.
    Some fool thinks names are things; and boasts
    Aloud of spirits and of ghosts.
    Religion follows on a pun!
    And we, who know that Holy One
    Of whom I told thee, seek in vain
    Figure or word to make it plain.
OLYMPAS. Despair of man!
MARSYAS. Man is the seed
    Of the unimaginable flower.
    By singleness of thought and deed
    It may bloom now-this actual hour!
OLYMPAS. The soul made safe, is vision sure
    To rise therein?
MARSYAS. Though calm and pure
    It seem, maybe some thought hath crept
    Into his mind to baulk the adept.
    The expectation of success
    Suffices to destroy the stress
    Of the one thought. But then, what odds?
    "Man's vision goes, dissolves in God's;"
    Or, "by God's grace the Light is given
    To the elected heir of heaven."
    These are but idle theses, dry
    Dugs of the cow Theology.
    Business is business. The one fact
    That we know is : the gods exact
    A stainless mirror. Cleanse thy soul!
    Perfect the will's austere control!
    For the rest, wait! The sky once clear,
    Dawn needs no prompting to appear!
OLYMPAS. Enough! it shall be done.
MARSYAS. Beware!
    Easily trips the big word "dare."
    Each man's an OEdipus, that thinks
    He hath the four powers of the Sphinx,
    Will, Courage, Knowledge, Silence. Son,
    Even the adepts scarce win to one!
    Thy Thoughts-they fall like rotten fruits.
    But to destroy the power that makes
    These thoughts-thy Self? A man it takes
    To tear his soul up by the roots!
    this is the mandrake fable, boy!
OLYMPAS. You told me that the Path was joy.
MARSYAS. A lie to lure thee!
OLYMPAS. Master!
MARSYAS. Pain
    And joy are twin toys of the brain.
    even early visions pass beyond!
OLYMPAS. Not all the crabbed runes I have conned
    Told me so plain a truth. I see,
    Inscrutable Simplicity!
    Crushed like a blind-worm by the heel
    Of all I am, perceive, and feel,
    My truth was but the partial pang
    That chanced to strike me as I sang.
MARSYAS. In the beginning, violence
    Marks the extinction of the sense.
    Anguish and rapture rack the soul.
    These are disruptions of control.
    Self-poised, a brooding hawk, there hangs
    In the still air the adept. The bull
    On the firm earth goes not so smooth!
    So the first fine ecstatic pangs
    Pass ; balance comes.
OLYMPAS. How wonderful
    Are these tall avenues of truth!
MARSYAS. So the first flash of light and terror
    Is seen as shadow, known as error.
    Next, light comes as light; as it grows
    The sense of peace still steadier glows;
    And the fierce lust, that linked the soul
    To its God, attains a chaste control.
    Intimate, an atomic bliss,
    Is the last phrasing of that kiss.
    Not ecstasy, but peace, pure peace!

    Invisible the dew sublimes
    From the great mother, subtly climbs
    And loves the leaves! Yea, in the end,
    Vision all vision must transcend.
    These glories are mere scaffolding
    To the Closed Palace of the King.
OLYMPAS. Yet, saidst thou, ere the new flower shoots
    The soul is torn up by the roots.
MARSYAS. Now come we to the intimate things
    Known to how few! Man's being clings
    First to the outer. Free from these
    The inner sheathings, and he sees
    Those sheathings as external. Strip
    One after one each lovely lip
    From the full rose-bud! Ever new
    Leaps the next petal to the view.
    What binds them but Desire? Disease
    Most dire of direful Destiny's!
OLYMPAS. I have abandoned all to tread
    The brilliant pathway overhead!
MARSYAS. Easy to say. To abandon all,
    All must be first loved and possessed.
    Nor thou nor I have burst the thrall.
    All-as I offered half in jest,
    Sceptic-was torn away from me.
    Not without pain! THEY slew my child,
    Dragged my wife down to infamy
    Loathlier than death, drove to the wild
    My tortured body, stripped me of
    Wealth, health, youth, beauty, ardour, love.
    Thou hast abandoned all ? Then try
    A speck of dust within the eye!
OLYMPAS. But that is different!
MARSYAS. Life is one.
    Magic is life. The physical
    (Men name it) is a house of call
    For the adept, heir of the sun!
    Bombard the house! it groans and gapes.
    The adept runs forth, and so escapes
    That ruin!
OLYMPAS. Smoothly parallel
    The ruin of the mind as well?
MARSYAS. Ay! Hear the Ordeal of the Veil,
    The Second Veil! . . . O spare me this
    Magical memory! I pale
    To show the Veil of the Abyss.
    Nay, let confession be complete!
OLYMPAS. Master, I bend me at thy feet-
    Why do they sweat with blood and dew?
MARSYAS. Blind horror catches at my breath.
    The path of the abyss runs through
    Things darker, dismaller than death!
    Courage and will! What boots their force?
    The mind rears like a frightened horse.
    There is no memory possible
    Of that unfathomable hell.
    Even the shadows that arise
    Are things too dreadful to recount!
    There's no such doom in Destiny's
    Harvest of horror. The white fount
    Of speech is stifled at its source.
    Know, the sane spirit keeps its course
    By this, that everything it thinks
    Hath causal or contingent links.
    Destroy them, and destroy the mind!
    O bestial, bottomless, and blind
    Black pit of all insanity!
    The adept must make his way to thee!
    This is the end of all our pain,
    The dissolution of the brain!
    For lo! in this no mortar sticks;
    Down comes the house-a hail of bricks!
    The sense of all I hear is drowned;
    Tap, tap, isolated sound,
    Patters, clatters, batters, chatters,
    Tap, tap, tap, and nothing matters!
    Senseless hallucinations roll
    Across the curtain of the soul.
    Each ripple on the river seems
    The madness of a maniac's dreams!
    So in the self no memory-chain
    Or causal wisp to bind the straws!
    The self disrupted! Blank, insane,
    Both of existence and of laws,
    The Ego and the Universe
    Fall to one black chaotic curse.
OLYMPAS. So ends philosophy's inquiry :
    "Summa scientia nihil scire."
MARSYAS. Ay. but that reasoned thesis lacks
    The impact of reality.
    This vision is a battle axe
    Splitting the skull. O pardon me!
    But my soul faints, my stomach sinks.
    Let me pass on !
OLYMPAS. My being drinks
    The nectar-poison of the Sphinx.
    This is a bitter medicine!
MARSYAS. Black snare that I was taken in!
    How one may pass I hardly know.
    Maybe time never blots the track.
    Black, black, intolerably black!
    Go, spectre of the ages, go!
    Suffice it that I passed beyond.
    I found the secret of the bond.
    Of thought to thought through countless years,
    Through many lives, in many spheres,
    Brought to a point the dark design
    Of this existence that is mine.
    I knew my secret. All I was
    I brought into the burning-glass,
    And all its focussed light and heat
    Charred all I am. The rune's complete
    When all I shall be flashes by
    Like a shadow on the sky.

    Then I dropped my reasoning.
    Vacant and accursed thing!
    by my Will I swept away
    The web of metaphysic, smiled
    At the blind labyrinth, where the grey
    Old snake of madness wove his wild
    Curse! As I trod the trackless way
    Through sunless gorges of Cathay,
    I became a little child.
    By naneless rivers, swirling through
    Chasms, a fantastic blue,
    Month by month, on barren hills,
    In burning heat, in bitter chills,
    Tropic forest, Tartar snow,
    Smaragdine archipelago,
    See me-led by some wise hand
    That I did not understand.
    Morn and noon and eve and night
    I, the forlorn eremite,
    Called on Him with mild devotion,
    As the dew-drop woos the ocean.

    In my wanderings I came
    To an ancient park aflame
    With fairies' feet. Still wrapped in love
    I was caught up, beyond, above
    The tides of being. The great sight
    Of the whole universe that wove
    The labyrinth of life and love
    Blazed in me. Then some giant will,
    Mine or another's, thrust a thrill
    Through the great vision. All the light
    Went out in an immortal night,
    The world annihilated by
    The opening of the Master's Eye.
    How can I tell it?
OLYMPAS. Master, master!
    A sense of some divine disaster
    Abases me.
MARSYAS. Indeed, the shrine
    Is desolate of the divine!
    But all the illusion gone, behold
    The One that is!
OLYMPAS. Royally rolled,
    I hear strange music in the air!
MARSYAS. It is the angelic choir, aware
    Of the great Ordeal dared and done
    By one more Brother of the Sun!
OLYMPAS. Master, the shriek of a great bird
    Blends with the torrent of the thunder.
MARSYAS. It is the echo of the word
    That tore the universe asunder.
OLYMPAS. Master, thy stature spans the sky.
MARSYAS. Verily ; but it is not I.
    The adept dissolves-pale phantom form
    Blown from the black mouth of the storm.
    It is another that arises!
OLYMPAS. Yet in thee, through thee !
MARSYAS. I am not.
OLYMPAS. For me thou art.
MARSYAS. So that suffices
    To seal thy will? To cast thy lot
    Into the lap of God? Then, well!
OLYMPAS. Ay, there is no more potent spell.
    Through life, through death, by land and sea
    Most surely will I follow thee.
MARSYAS. Follow thyself, not me. Thou hast
    An Holy Guardian Angel, bound
    To lead thee from thy better waste
    To the inscrutable profound
    That is His covenanted ground.
OLYMPAS. Thou who hast known these master-keys
    Of all creation's mysteries,
    Tell me, what followed the great gust
    Of God that blew his world to dust?
MARSYAS. I, even I the man, became
    As a great sword of flashing flame.
    My life, informed with holiness,
    Conscious of its own loveliness,
    Like a well that overflows
    At the limit of the snows,
    Sent its crystal stream to gladden
    The hearts of men, their lives to madden
    With the intoxicating bliss
    (Wine mixed with myrrh and ambergris!)
    O this bitter-sweet perfume,
    This gorse's blaze of prickly bloom
    That is the Wisdom of the Way.
    Then springs the statue from the clay,
    And all God's doubted fatherhood
    Is seen to be supremely good.

    Live within the sane sweet sun!
    Leave the shadow-world alone1
OLYMPAS. There is a crown for every one ;
    For every one there is a throne!
MARSYAS. That crown is Silence. Sealed and sure!
    That throne is Knowledge perfect pure.
    Below that throne adoring stand
    Virtues in a blissful band;
    Mercy, majesty and power,
    Beauty and harmony and strength,
    Triumph and splendour, starry shower
    Of flames that flake their lily length,
    A necklet of pure light, far-flung
    Down to the Base, from which is hung
    A pearl, the Universe, whose sight
    Is one globed jewel of delight.
    Fallen no more! A bowered bride
    Blushing to be satisfied!
OLYMPAS. All this, if once the Eye unclose?
MARSYAS. The golden cross, the ruby rose
    Are gone, when flaming from afar
    The Hawk's eye blinds the Silver Star.

    O brothers of the Star, caressed
    By its cool flames from brow to breast,
    Is there some rapture yet to excite
    This prone and pallid neophyte?
OLYMPAS. O but there is no need of this!
    I burn toward the abyss of Bliss.
    I call the Four Powers of the Name;
    Earth, wind and cloud, sea, smoke and flame
    To witness : by this triune Star
    I swear to break the twi-forked bar.
    But how to attain? Flexes and leans
    The strongest will that lacks the means.
MARSYAS. There are seven keys to the great gate,
    Being eight in one and one in eight.
    First, let the body of thee be still,
    Bound by the cerements of will,
    Corpse-rigid ; thus thou mayst abort
    The fidget-babes that tease the thought.
    Next, let the breath-rhythm be low,
    Easy, regular, and slow ;
    So that thy being be in tune
    With the great sea's Pacific swoon.
    Third, let thy life be pure and calm
    Swayed softly as a windless palm.
    Fourth, let the will-to-live be bound
    To the one love of the Profound.
    Fifth, let the thought, divinely free
    From sense, observe its entity.
    Watch every thought that springs ; enhance
    Hour after hour thy vigilance!
    Intense and keen, turned inward, miss
    No atom of analysis!
    Sixth, on one thought securely pinned
    Still every whisper of the wind!
    So like a flame straight and unstirred
    Burn up thy being in one word!
    Next, still that ecstasy, prolong
    Thy meditation steep and strong,
    Slaying even God, should He distract
    Thy attention from the chosen act!
    Last, all these things in one o'erpowered!
    Time that the midnight blossom flowered!
    The oneness is. Yet even in this,
    My son, thou shalt not do amiss
    If thou restrain the expression, shoot
    Thy glance to rapture's darkling root,
    Discarding name, form, sight, and stress
    Even of this high consciousness ;
    Pierce to the heart! I leave thee here :
    Thou art the Master. I revere
    Thy radiance that rolls afar,
    O Brother of the Silver Star!
OLYMPAS. Ah, but no ease may lap my limbs.
    Giants and sorcerers oppose ;
    Ogres and dragons are my foes!
    Leviathan against me swims,
    And lions roar, and Boreas blows!
    No Zephyrs woo, no happy hymns
    Paean the Pilgrim of the Rose!
MARSYAS. I teach the royal road of light.
    Be thou, devoutly eremite,
    Free of thy fate. Choose tenderly
    A place for thine Academy.
    Let there be an holy wood
    Of embowered solitude
    By the still, the rainless river,
    Underneath the tangled roots
    Of majestic trees that quiver
    In the quiet airs ; where shoots
    Of the kindly grass are green,
    Moss and ferns asleep between,
    Lilies in the water lapped,
    Sunbeams in the branches trapped
    -Windless and eternal even!
    Silenced all the birds of heaven
    By the low insistent call
    Of the constant waterfall.
    There, to such a setting be
    Its carven gem of deity,
    A central flawless fire, enthralled
    Like Truth within an emerald!
    Thou shalt have a birchen bark
    On the river in the dark;
    And at the midnight thou shalt go
    To the mid-stream's smoothest flow,
    And strike upon a golden bell
    The spirit's call ; then say the spell :
    "Angel, mine angel, draw thee nigh!"
    Making the Sign of Magistry
    With wand of lapis lazuli.
    Then, it may be, through the blind dumb
    Night thou shalt see thine angel come,
    Hear the faint whisper of his wings,
    Behold the starry breast begemmed
    With the twelve stones of the twelve kings!
    His fore head shall be diademed
    With the faint light of stars, wherein
    Thereat thou swoonest ; and thy love
    Shall catch the subtle voice thereof.
    He shall inform his happy lover ;
    My foolish prating shall be over!
OLYMPAS. O now I burn with holy haste.
    This doctrine hath so sweet a taste
    That all the other wine is sour.
MARSYAS. Son, there's a bee for every flower.
    Lie open, a chameleon cup,
    And let Him suck thine honey up!
OLYMPAS. There is one doubt. When souls attain
    Such an unimagined gain
    Shall not others mark them, wise
    Beyond mere mortal destines?
MARSYAS. Such are not the perfect saints.
    While the imagination faints
    Before their truth, they veil it close
    As amid the utmost snows
    The tallest peaks most straitly hide
    With clouds their holy heads. Divide
    The planes! Be ever as you can
    A simple honest gentleman!
    Body and manners be at ease,
    Not bloat with blazoned sanctities!
    Who fights as fights the soldier-saint?
    And see the artist-adept paint!
    Weak are those souls that fear the stress
    Of earth upon their holiness!
    They fast, they eat fantastic food,
    They prate of beans and brotherhood.
    Wear sandals, and long hair, and spats,
    And think that makes them Arahats!
    How shall man still his spirit-storm?
    Rational Dress and Food Reform!
OLYMPAS. I know such saints.
MARSYAS. An easy vice:
    So wondrous well they advertise!
    O their mean souls are satisfied
    With wind of spiritual pride.
    They're all negation. "Do not eat;
    What poison to the soul is meat!
    Drink not; smoke not; deny the will!
    Wine and tobacco make us ill."
    Magic is life; the Will to Live
    Is one supreme Affirmative.
    These things that flinch from Life are worth
    No more to Heaven then to Earth.
    Affirm the everlasting Yes!
OLYMPAS. Those saints at least score one success:
    Perfection of their priggishness!
MARSYAS. Enough. The soul is subtlier fed
    With meditation's wine and bread.
    Forget their failings and our own;
    Fix all our thoughts on Love alone!
   
    Ah, boy, all crowns and thrones above
    Is the sanctity of love.
    In His warm and secret shrine
    Is a cup of perfect wine,
    Whereof one drop is medicine
    Against all ills that hurt the soul.
    A flaming daughter of the Jinn
    Brought to me once a winged scroll,
    Wherein I read the spell that brings
    The knowledge of that King of Kings.
    Angel, I invoke thee now!
    Bend on me the starry brow!
    Spread the eagle wings above
    The pavilion of our love!....
    Rise from your starry sapphire seats!
    See, where through the quickening skies
    The oriflamme of beauty beats
    Heralding loyal legionaries,
    Whose flame of golden javelins
    Fences those peerless paladins.
    There are the burning lamps of them,
    Splendid star-clusters to begem
    The trailing torrents of the blue
    Bright wings that bear mine angel through!
    O Thou art like an Hawk of Gold,
    Miraculously manifold,
    For all the sky's aflame to be
    A mirror magical of Thee!
    The stars seem comets, rushing down
    To gem thy robes, bedew thy crown.
    Like the moon-plumes of a strange bird
    By a great wind sublimely stirred,
    Thou drawest the light of all the skies
    Into thy wake. The heaven dies
    In bubbling froth of light, that foams
    About thine ardour. All the domes
    Of all the heavens close above thee
    As thou art known to me who love thee.
    Excellent kiss, thou fastenest on
    This soul of mine, that it is gone,
    Gone from all life, and rapt away
    Into the infinite starry spray
    Of thine own AEon...Alas for me!
    I faint. Thy mystic majesty
    Absorbs this spark.
OLYMPAS. All hail! all hail!
    White splendour through the viewless veil!
    I am drawn with thee to rapture.
MARSYAS. Stay!
    I bear a message. Heaven hath sent
    The knowledge of a new sweet way
    Into the Secret Element.
OLYMPAS. Master, while yet the glory clings
    Declare this mystery magical!
MARSYAS. I am yet borne on those blue wings
    Into the Essence of the All.
    Now, now I stand on earth again,
    Though, blazing though each nerve and vein,
    The light yet holds its choral course,
    Filling my frame with fiery force
    Like God's. Now hear the Apocalypse
    New-fledged on these reluctant lips!
OLYMPAS. I tremble like an aspen, quiver
    Like light upon a rainy river!
Marsyas. Do what thou wilt! is the sole word
    Of law that my attainment heard.
    Arise, and lay thine hand on God!
    Arise, and set a period
    Unto Restriction! That is sin:
    To hold thine holy spirit in!
    O thou that chafest at thy bars,
    Invoke Nuit beneath her stars
    With a pure heart (Her incense burned
    Of gums and woods, in gold inurned),
    And let the serpent flame therein
    A little, and thy soul shall win
    To lie within her bosom. Lo!
    Thou wouldst give all--and she cries: No!
    Take all, and take me! Gather spice
    And virgins and great pearls of price!
    Worship me in a single robe,
    Crowned richly! Girdle of the globe,
    I love thee. I am drunkenness
    Of the inmost sense; my soul's caress
    Is toward thee! Let my priestess stand
    Bare and rejoicing, softly fanned
    By smooth-lipped acolytes, upon
    Mine iridescent altar-stone,
    And in her love-chaunt swooningly
    Say evermore: To me! To me!
    I am the azure-lidded daughter
    Of sunset; the all-girdling water;
    The naked brilliance of the sky
    In the voluptuous night am I!
    With song, with jewel, with perfume,
    Wake all my rose's blush and bloom!
    Drink to me! Love me! I love thee,
    My love, my lord--to me! to me!
OLYMPAS. There is no harshness in the breath
    Of this- is life surpassed, and death?
MARSYAS. There is the Snake that gives delight
    And Knowledge, stirs the heart aright
    With drunkenness. Strange drugs are thine
    Hadit, and draughts of wizard wine!
    These do no hurt. Thine hermits dwell
    Not in the cold secretive cell,
    But under purple canopies
    With mighty-breasted mistresses
    Magnificent as lionesses-
    Tender and terrible caresses!
    Fire lives, and light, in eager eyes ;
    And massed hugh hair about them lies.
    They lead their hosts to victory:
    In every joy they are kings ; then see
    That secret serpent coiled to spring
    And win the world! O priest and king,
    Let there be feasting, foining, fighting,
    A revel of lusting, singing, smiting!
    Work ; be the bed of work! Hold! Hold!
    The stars' kiss is as molten gold.
    Harden! Hold thyself up! now die-
    Ah! Ah! Exceed! Exceed!
OLYMPAS. And I?
MARSYAS. My stature shall surpass the stars:
    He hath said it! Men shall worship me
    In hidden woods, on barren scaurs,
    Henceforth to all eternity.
OLYMPAS. Hail! I adore thee! Let us feast.
MARSYAS. I am the consecrated Beast.
    I build the Abominable House.
    The Scarlet Woman is my Spouse-
OLYMPAS. What is this word?
MARSYAS. Thou canst not know
    Till thou hast passed the Fourth Ordeal.
OLYMPAS. I worship thee. The moon-rays flow
    Masterfully rich and real
    From thy red mouth, and burst, young suns
    Chanting before the Holy Ones
    Thine Eight Mysterious Orisons!
MARSYAS. The last spell! The availing word!
    The two completed by the third!
    The Lord of War, of Vengeance
    That slayeth with a single glance!
    This light is in me of my Lord.
    His Name is this far-whirling sword.
    I push His order. Keen and swift
    My Hawk's eye flames ; these arms up!
    The Banner of Silence and of Strength
    Hail! Hail! thou art here, my Lord, at length!
    Lo, the Hawk-Headed Lord am I :
    My nemyss shrouds the night-blue sky.
    Hail! ye twin warriors that guard
    The pillars of the world! Your time
    Is nigh at hand. The snake that marred
    Heaven with his inexhaustible slime
    Is slain ; I bear the Wand of Power,
    The Wand that waxes and that wanes;
    I crush the Universe this hour
    In my left hand; and naught remains!
    Ho! for the splendour in my name
    Hidden and glorious, a flame
    Secretly shooting from the sun.
    Aum! Ha!-my destiny is done.
    The word is spoken and concealed.
OLYMPAS. I am stunned. What wonder was revealed?
MARSYAS. The rite is secret.
OLYMPAS. Profits it?
MARSYAS. Only to wisdom and to wit.
OLYMPAS. The other did no less.
MARSYAS. Then prove
    Both by the master-key of Love
    The lock turns stiffly? Shalt thou shirk
    To use the sacred oil of work?
    Not from the valley shalt thou test
    The eggs that line the eagle's nest!
    Climb, with thy life at stake, the ice,
    The sheer wall of the precipice!
    Master the cornice, gain the breach,
    And learn what next the ridge can teach!
    Yet-not the ridge itself may speak
    The secret of the final peak.
OLYMPAS. All ridges join at last.
MARSYAS. Admitted,
    O thou astute and subtle-witted!
    Yet one-loose, jagged, clad in mist1
    Another-firm, smooth, loved and kissed
    By the soft sun! Our order hath
    This secret of the solar path,
    Even as our Lord the Beast hath won
    The mystic Number of the Sun.
OLYMPAS. These secrets are too high for me.
MARSYAS. Nay, little brother! Come and see!
    Neither by faith nor fear nor awe
    Approach the doctrine of the Law!
    Truth, Courage, Love, shall win the bout,
    And those three others be cast out.
OLYMPAS. Lead me, Master, by the hand
    Gently to this gracious land!
    Let ne drink the doctrine in,
    An all-healing medicine!
    Let me rise, correct and firm,
    Steady striding to the term,
    Master of my fate, to rise
    To imperial destinies ;
    With the sun's ensanguine dart
    Spear-bright in my blazing heart,
    And my being's basil-plant
    Bright and hard as adamant!
MARSYAS. Yonder, faintly luminous,
    The yellow desert waits for us.
    Lithe and eager, hand in hand,
    We travel to the lonely land.
    There, beneath the stars, the smoke
    Of our incense shall invoke
    The Queen of Space ; and subtly She
    Shall bend from Her infinity
    Like a lambent flame of blue,
    Touching us, and piercing through
    All the sense-webs that we are
    As the aethyr penetrates a star!
    Her hands caressing the black earth,
    Her sweet lithe body arched for love,
    Her feet a Zephyr to the flowers,
    She calls my name-she gives the sign
    That she is mine, supremely mine,
    And clinging to the infinite girth
    My soul gets perfect joy thereof
    Beyond the abysses and the hours ;
    So that-I kiss her lovely brows;
    She bathes my body in perfume
    Of sweat . . . . O thou my secret spouse,
    Continuous One of Heaven! illume
    My soul with this arcane delight,
    Voluptuous Daughter of the Night!
    Eat me up wholly with the glance
    Of thy luxurious brilliance!
OLYMPAS. The desert calls.
MARSYAS. Then let us go!
    Or seek the sacramental snow,
    Where like an high-priest I may stand
    With acolytes on every hand,
    The lesser peaks-my will withdrawn
    To invoke the dayspring from the dawn,
    Changing that rosy smoke of light
    To a pure crystalline white;
    Though the mist of mind, as draws
    A dancer round her limbs the gauze,
    Clothe Light, and show the virgin Sun
    A lemon-pale medallion!
    Thence leap we leashless to the goal,
    Stainless star-rapture of the soul.
    So the altar-fires fade
    As the Godhead is displayed.
    Nay, we stir not. Everywhere
    Is our temple right appointed.
    All the earth is faery fair
    For us. Am I not anointed?
    The Sigil burns upon the brow
    At the adjuration-here and now.
OLYMPAS. The air is laden with perfumes.
MARSYAS. Behold! It beams-it burns-it blooms.
* * * * *
OLYMPAS. Master, how subtly hast thou drawn
    The daylight from the Golden Dawn,
    Bidden the Cavernous Mount unfold
    Its Ruby Rose, its Cross of Gold;
    Until I saw, flashed from afar,
    The Hawk's Eye in the Silver Star!
MARSYAS. Peace to all beings. Peace to thee,
    Co-heir of mine eternity1
    Peace to the greatest and the least,
    To nebula and nenuphar!
    Light in abundance be increased
    On them that dream that shadows are!
OLYMPAS. Blessing and worship to The Beast,
    The prophet of the lovely Star!