THE GREAT BEAST 666 - THE HOLY BOOKS OF THELEMA
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		The Holy Books of Thelema PLEASE NOTE The Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) is the organisation which has the legal ownership of all materials produced by Aleister Crowley.  This site is not an official O.T.O. website, and is neither sponsored by nor controlled by that organisation.  Consequently, all material on this website, such as that found here, is and remains the copyright © of O.T.O. The text of such material, although freely available elsewhere on the internet, is made available on this website only for personal and non-commercial use, and is provided here in a convenient searchable form as a study resource for those seekers looking for it for research purposes.  For commercial use, please contact Ordo Templi Orientis. ΘΕΛΗΜΑ A syllabus of the Official Instructions of the Astrum Argentum AA , originally published in Equinox, Vol I, No. 10., divided them into four distinct classes: Class A - This consists of books of which may be changed not so much as the style of a letter: that is, they represent the utterance of an Adept entirely beyond the criticism of even the Visible Head of the Organisation.  They are referred to as The Holy Books, because they originated from sources beyond human comprehension.  Liber LXI vel Causae was originally included in this classification but has since been reclassified as Class D. Class B - Consists of books or essays which are the result of ordinary scholarship, enlightened and earnest. Class C - Consists of matter which is to be regarded rather as suggestive more than anything else. Class D - Consists of the Official Rituals and Instructions. The Holy Books of Thelema, i.e. the Class A publications, comprise:  Liber B vel Magi sub figurâ I   Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli Adumbratio Kabbalæ Ægyptiorum sub figurâ VII    Liber Porta Lucis sub figurâ X     Liber Trigrammaton sub figurâ XXVII      Liber LXV Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente sub figurâ       Liber Stellæ Rubeæ sub figurâ LXVI        Liber Tzaddi vel Hamus Hermeticus sub figurâ XC         Liber Cheth vel Vallum Abigni sub figurâ CLVI          Liber AL vel Legis sub figurâ CCXX            AL (Liber Legis) The Book of the Law sub figurâ XXXI             Liber Arcanorum ATU TAHUTI QUAS IDIT ASAR IN AMENNTI sub figurâ CCXXXI Liber Carcerorum QLIPHOTH cum suis Geniis.  Adduntur Sigilla et Nomina Eorum.               Liber A’ash vel Capricorni Pneumatici sub figurâ CCCLXX                Liber Tau vel Kabbalæ Trium Literarum sub figurâ CD                 Liber DCCCXIII vel Ararita sub figurâ DLXX Return to top of page.

		Liber B vel Magi sub figurâ I This is an account of the Grade of Magus, the highest grade which it is ever possible to manifest in any way whatever upon this plane.  Or so it is said by the Masters of the Temple.  The Equinox VII, p. 5.  In Crowley's own words from Confessions: "This is an inspired writing.  It describes the conditions of that exalted Grade.  I had at this time no idea that I should ever attain to it; in fact, I thought it utterly beyond possibility.  This book was given to me that I might avoid mistakes when the time came for me to become a Magus.  It is impossible to give any idea of the terror and sublimity of this book, while the accuracy of its predictions and of its descriptions of the state of being, at that time wholly beyond my imagination to conceive, make it a most astonishing document." 00 One is the Magus: twain His forces: four His weapons.  These are the Seven Spirits of Unrighteousness; seven vultures of evil.  Thus is the art and craft of the Magus but glamour.  How shall He destroy Himself? 0 Yet the Magus hath power upon the Mother both directly and through Love.  And the Magus is Love, and bindeth together That and This in His Conjuration. 1 In the beginning doth the Magus speak Truth, and send forth Illusion and Falsehood to enslave the soul.  Yet therein is the Mystery of Redemption. 2 By his Wisdom made He the Worlds; the Word that is God is none other than He. 3 How then shall He end His speech with Silence?  For He is Speech. 4 He is the First and the Last.  How shall He cease to number Himself? 5 By a Magus is this writing made known through the mind of a Magister.  The one uttereth clearly, and the other understandeth; yet the Word is falsehood, and the Understanding darkness.  And this saying is Of All Truth. 6 Nevertheless it is written; for there be times of darkness, and this as a lamp therein. 7 With the Wand createth He. 8 With the Cup preserveth He. 9 With the Dagger destroyeth He. 10 With the Coin redeemeth He. 11 His weapons fulfil the wheel; and on What Axle that turneth is not known unto Him. 12 From all these actions must He cease before the curse of His Grade is uplifted from Him.  Before He attain to That which existeth without Form. 13 And if at this time He be manifested upon earth as a Man, and therefore is this present writing, let this be His method, that the curse of His grade, and the burden of His attainment, be uplifted from Him. 14 Let Him beware of abstinence from action.  For the curse of His grade is that He must speak Truth, that the Falsehood thereof may enslave the souls of men.  Let Him then utter that without Fear, that the Law may be fulfilled.  And according to His Original Nature will that law be shapen, so that one may declare gentleness and quietness, being an Hindu; and another fierceness and servility, being a Jew; and yet another ardour and manliness, being an Arab.  Yet this matter toucheth the mystery of Incarnation, and is not here to be declared. 15 Now the grade of a Magister teacheth the Mystery of Sorrow, and the grade of a Magus the Mystery of Change, and the grade of Ipsissimus the Mystery of Selflessness, which is called also the Mystery of Pan. 16 Let the Magus then contemplate each in turn, raising it to the ultimate power of Infinity.  Wherein Sorrow is Joy, and Change is Stability, and Selflessness is Self.  For the interplay of the parts hath no action upon the whole.  And this contemplation shall be performed not by simple meditation—how much less then by reason! but by the method which shall have been given unto Him in His initiation to the Grade. 17 Following which method, it shall be easy for Him to combine that trinity from its elements, and further to combine Sat-Chit-Ananda, and Light, Love, Life, three by three into nine that are one, in which meditation success shall be That which was first adumbrated to Him in the grade of Practicus (which reflecteth Mercury into the lowest world) in Liber XXVII, «Here is Nothing under its three Forms.» 18 And this is the Opening of the Grade of Ipsissimus, and by the Buddhists it is called the trance Nerodha-Samapatti. 19 And woe, woe, woe, yea woe, and again woe, woe, woe, unto seven times be His that preacheth not His law to men! 20 And woe also be unto Him that refuseth the curse of the grade of a Magus, and the burden of the Attainment thereof. 21 And in the word CHAOS let the book be sealed; yea, let the Book be sealed. Return to top of page.

		Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli Adumbratio Kabbalæ Ægyptiorum sub figurâ VII Being the Voluntary Emancipation of a certain Exempt Adept from his Adeptship.  These are the Birth-Words of a Master of the Temple.  The nature of this book is sufficiently explained by its title.  Its seven chapters are referred to the seven planets in the following order: Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Sol, Mercury, Luna, Venus. PROLOGUE OF THE UNBORN 1 Into my loneliness comes— 2 The sound of a flute in dim groves that haunt the uttermost hills. 3 Even from the brave river they reach to the edge of the wilderness. 4 And I behold Pan. 5 The snows are eternal above, above— 6 And their perfume smokes upward into the nostrils of the stars. 7 But what have I to do with these? 8 To me only the distant flute, the abiding vision of Pan. 9 On all sides Pan to the eye, to the ear; 10 The perfume of Pan pervading, the taste of him utterly filling my mouth, so that the tongue breaks forth into a weird and monstrous speech. 11 The embrace of him intense on every centre of pain and pleasure. 12 The sixth interior sense aflame with the inmost self of Him, 13 Myself flung down the precipice of being 14 Even to the abyss, annihilation. 15 An end to loneliness, as to all. 16 Pan! Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan! I 1 My God, how I love Thee! 2 With the vehement appetite of a beast I hunt Thee through the Universe. 3 Thou art standing as it were upon a pinnacle at the edge of some fortified city.  I am a white bird, and perch upon Thee. 4 Thou art My Lover: I see Thee as a nymph with her white limbs stretched by the spring. 5 She lies upon the moss; there is none other but she: 6 Art Thou not Pan? 7 I am He.  Speak not, O my God!  Let the work be accomplished in silence. 8 Let my cry of pain be crystallized into a little white fawn to run away into the forest! 9 Thou art a centaur, O my God, from the violet-blossoms that crown Thee to the hoofs of the horse. 10 Thou art harder than tempered steel; there is no diamond beside Thee. 11 Did I not yield this body and soul? 12 I woo thee with a dagger drawn across my throat. 13 Let the spout of blood quench Thy blood-thirst, O my God! 14 Thou art a little white rabbit in the burrow Night. 15 I am greater than the fox and the hole. 16 Give me Thy kisses, O Lord God! 17 The lightning came and licked up the little flock of sheep. 18 There is a tongue and a flame; I see that trident walking over the sea. 19 A phœnix hath it for its head; below are two prongs.  They spear the wicked. 20 I will spear Thee, O Thou little grey god, unless Thou beware! 21 From the grey to the gold; from the gold to that which is beyond the gold of Ophir. 22 My God! but I love Thee! 23 Why hast Thou whispered so ambiguous things?  Wast Thou afraid, O goat-hoofed One, O horned One, O pillar of lightning? 24 From the lightning fall pearls; from the pearls black specks of nothing. 25 I based all on one, one on naught. 26 Afloat in the æther, O my God, my God! 27 O Thou great hooded sun of glory, cut off these eyelids! 28 Nature shall die out; she hideth me, closing mine eyelids with fear, she hideth me from My destruction, O Thou open eye. 29 O ever-weeping One! 30 Not Isis my mother, nor Osiris my self; but the incestuous Horus given over to Typhon, so may I be! 31 There thought; and thought is evil. 32 Pan! Pan! Io Pan! it is enough. 33 Fall not into death, O my soul!  Think that death is the bed into which you are falling! 34 O how I love Thee, O my God!  Especially is there a vehement parallel light from infinity, vilely diffracted in the haze of this mind. 35 I love Thee. I love Thee. I love Thee. 36 Thou art a beautiful thing whiter than a woman in the column of this vibration. 37 I shoot up vertically like an arrow, and become that Above. 38 But it is death, and the flame of the pyre. 39 Ascend in the flame of the pyre, O my soul!  Thy God is like the cold emptiness of the utmost heaven, into which thou radiatest thy little light. 40 When Thou shall know me, O empty God, my flame shall utterly expire in Thy great N. O. X. 41 What shalt Thou be, my God, when I have ceased to love Thee? 42 A worm, a nothing, a niddering knave! 43 But Oh! I love Thee. 44 I have thrown a million flowers from the basket of the Beyond at Thy feet, I have anointed Thee and Thy Staff with oil and blood and kisses. 45 I have kindled Thy marble into life—ay! into death. 46 I have been smitten with the reek of Thy mouth, that drinketh never wine but life. 47 How the dew of the Universe whitens the lips! 48 Ah! trickling flow of the stars of the mother Supernal, begone! 49 I Am She that should come, the Virgin of all men. 50 I am a boy before Thee, O Thou satyr God. 51 Thou wilt inflict the punishment of pleasure—Now! Now! Now! 52 Io Pan! Io Pan! I love Thee. I love Thee. 53 O my God, spare me! 54 Now! It is done! Death. 55 I cried aloud the word—and it was a mighty spell to bind the Invisible, an enchantment to unbind the bound; yea, to unbind the bound. II 1 O my God! use Thou me again, always.  For ever! For ever! 2 That which came fire from Thee cometh water from me; let therefore Thy Spirit lay hold on me, so that my right hand loose the lightning. 3 Travelling through space, I saw the onrush of two galaxies, butting each other and goring like bulls upon earth.  I was afraid. 4 Thus they ceased fight, and turned upon me, and I was sorely crushed and torn. 5 I had rather have been trampled by the World-Elephant. 6 O my God!  Thou art my little pet tortoise! 7 Yet Thou sustainest the World-Elephant. 8 I creep under Thy carapace, like a lover into the bed of his beautiful; I creep in, and sit in Thine heart, as cubby and cosy as may be. 9 Thou shelterest me, that I hear not the trumpeting of that World-Elephant. 10 Thou art not worth an obol in the agora; yet Thou art not to be bought at the ransom of the whole Universe. 11 Thou art like a beautiful Nubian slave leaning her naked purple against the green pillars of marble that are above the bath. 12 Wine jets from her black nipples. 13 I drank wine awhile agone in the house of Pertinax.  The cup-boy favoured me, and gave me of the right sweet Chian. 14 There was a Doric boy, skilled in feats of strength, an athlete.  The full moon fled away angrily down the wrack.  Ah! but we laughed. 15 I was pernicious drunk, O my God!  Yet Pertinax brought me to the bridal. 16 I had a crown of thorns for all my dower. 17 Thou art like a goat's horn from Astor, O Thou God of mine, gnarl’d and crook’d and devilish strong. 18 Colder than all the ice of all the glaciers of the Naked Mountain was the wine it poured for me. 19 A wild country and a waning moon.  Clouds scudding over the sky.  A circuit of pines, and of tall yews beyond.  Thou in the midst! 20 O all ye toads and cats, rejoice!  Ye slimy things, come hither! 21 Dance, dance to the Lord our God! 22 He is he!  He is he!  He is he! 23 Why should I go on? 24 Why?  Why? comes the sudden cackle of a million imps of hell. 25 And the laughter runs. 26 But sickens not the Universe; but shakes not the stars. 27 God! how I love Thee! 28 I am walking in an asylum; all the men and women about me are insane. 29 Oh madness! madness! madness! desirable art thou! 30 But I love Thee, O God! 31 These men and women rave and howl; they froth out folly. 32 I begin to be afraid.  I have no check; I am alone.  Alone.  Alone. 33 Think, O God, how I am happy in Thy love. 34 O marble Pan!  O false leering face!  I love Thy dark kisses, bloody and stinking!  O marble Pan!  Thy kisses are like sunlight on the blue Ægean; their blood is the blood of the sunset over Athens; their stink is like a garden of Roses of Macedonia. 35 I dreamt of sunset and roses and vines; Thou wast there, O my God, Thou didst habit Thyself as an Athenian courtesan, and I loved Thee. 36 Thou art no dream, O Thou too beautiful alike for sleep and waking! 37 I disperse the insane folk of the earth; I walk alone with my little puppets in the garden. 38 I am Gargantuan great; yon galaxy is but the smoke-ring of mine incense. 39 Burn Thou strange herbs, O God! 40 Brew me a magic liquor, boys, with your glances! 41 The very soul is drunken. 42 Thou art drunken, O my God, upon my kisses. 43 The Universe reels; Thou hast looked upon it. 44 Twice, and all is done. 45 Come, O my God, and let us embrace! 46 Lazily, hungrily, ardently, patiently; so will I work. 47 There shall be an End. 48 O God!  O God! 49 I am a fool to love Thee; Thou art cruel, Thou withholdest Thyself. 50 Come to me now!  I love Thee!  I love Thee! 51 O my darling, my darling—Kiss me!  Kiss me!  Ah! but again. 52 Sleep, take me!  Death, take me!  This life is too full; it pains, it slays, it suffices. 53 Let me go back into the world; yea, back into the world. III 1 I was the priest of Ammon-Ra in the temple of Ammon-Ra at Thebai. 2 But Bacchus came singing with his troops of vine-clad girls, of girls in dark mantles; and Bacchus in the midst like a fawn! 3 God! how I ran out in my rage and scattered the chorus! 4 But in my temple stood Bacchus as the priest of Ammon-Ra. 5 Therefore I went wildly with the girls into Abyssinia; and there we abode and rejoiced. 6 Exceedingly; yea, in good sooth! 7 I will eat the ripe and the unripe fruit for the glory of Bacchus. 8 Terraces of ilex, and tiers of onyx and opal and sardonyx leading up to the cool green porch of malachite. 9 Within is a crystal shell, shaped like an oyster—O glory of Priapus!  O beatitude of the Great Goddess! 10 Therein is a pearl. 11 O Pearl! thou hast come from the majesty of dread Ammon-Ra. 12 Then I the priest beheld a steady glitter in the heart of the pearl. 13 So bright we could not look!  But behold! a blood-red rose upon a rood of glowing gold! 14 So I adored the God.  Bacchus! thou art the lover of my God! 15 I who was priest of Ammon-Ra, who saw the Nile flow by for many moons, for many, many moons, am the young fawn of the grey land. 16 I will set up my dance in your conventicles, and my secret loves shall be sweet among you. 17 Thou shalt have a lover among the lords of the grey land. 18 This shall he bring unto thee, without which all is in vain; a man’s life spilt for thy love upon Mine Altars. 19 Amen. 20 Let it be soon, O God, my God!  I ache for Thee, I wander very lonely among the mad folk, in the grey land of desolation. 21 Thou shalt set up the abominable lonely Thing of wickedness.  Oh joy! to lay that corner-stone! 22 It shall stand erect upon the high mountain; only my God shall commune with it. 23 I will build it of a single ruby; it shall be seen from afar off. 24 Come! let us irritate the vessels of the earth: they shall distil strange wine. 25 It grows under my hand: it shall cover the whole heaven. 26 Thou art behind me: I scream with a mad joy. 27 Then said Ithuriel the strong; let Us also worship this invisible marvel! 28 So did they, and the archangels swept over the heaven. 29 Strange and mystic, like a yellow priest invoking mighty flights of great grey birds from the North, so do I stand and invoke Thee! 30 Let them obscure not the sun with their wings and their clamour! 31 Take away form and its following! 32 I am still. 33 Thou art like an osprey among the rice, I am the great red pelican in the sunset waters. 34 I am like a black eunuch; and Thou art the scimitar.  I smite off the head of the light one, the breaker of bread and salt. 35 Yea!  I smite—and the blood makes as it were a sunset on the lapis lazuli of the King’s Bedchamber. 36 I smite!  The whole world is broken up into a mighty wind, and a voice cries aloud in a tongue that men cannot speak. 37 I know that awful sound of primal joy; let us follow on the wings of the gale even unto the holy house of Hathor; let us offer the five jewels of the cow upon her altar! 38 Again the inhuman voice! 39 I rear my Titan bulk into the teeth of the gale, and I smite and prevail, and swing me out over the sea. 40 There is a strange pale God, a god of pain and deadly wickedness. 41 My own soul bites into itself, like a scorpion ringed with fire. 42 That pallid God with face averted, that God of subtlety and laughter, that young Doric God, him will I serve. 43 For the end thereof is torment unspeakable. 44 Better the loneliness of the great grey sea! 45 But ill befall the folk of the grey land, my God! 46 Let me smother them with my roses! 47 Oh Thou delicious God, smile sinister! 48 I pluck Thee, O my God, like a purple plum upon a sunny tree.  How Thou dost melt in my mouth, Thou consecrated sugar of the Stars! 49 The world is all grey before mine eyes; it is like an old worn wine-skin. 50 All the wine of it is on these lips. 51 Thou hast begotten me upon a marble Statue, O my God! 52 The body is icy cold with the coldness of a million moons; it is harder than the adamant of eternity.  How shall I come forth into the light? 53 Thou art He, O God!  O my darling! my child! my plaything!  Thou art like a cluster of maidens, like a multitude of swans upon the lake. 54 I feel the essence of softness. 55 I am hard and strong and male; but come Thou!  I shall be soft and weak and feminine. 56 Thou shalt crush me in the wine-press of Thy love.  My blood shall stain Thy fiery feet with litanies of Love in Anguish. 57 There shall be a new flower in the fields, a new vintage in the vineyards. 58 The bees shall gather a new honey; the poets shall sing a new song. 59 I shall gain the Pain of the Goat for my prize; and the God that sitteth upon the shoulders of Time shall drowse. 60 Then shall all this which is written be accomplished: yea, it shall be accomplished. IV 1 I am like a maiden bathing in a clear pool of fresh water. 2 O my God!  I see Thee dark and desirable, rising through the water as a golden smoke. 3 Thou art altogether golden, the hair and the eyebrows and the brilliant face; even into the finger-tips and toe-tips Thou art one rosy dream of gold. 4 Deep into Thine eyes that are golden my soul leaps, like an archangel menacing the sun. 5 My sword passes through and through Thee; crystalline moons ooze out of Thy beautiful body that is hidden behind the ovals of Thine eyes. 6 Deeper, ever deeper.  I fall, even as the whole Universe falls down the abyss of Years. 7 For Eternity calls; the Overworld calls; the world of the Word is awaiting us. 8 Be done with speech, O God!  Fasten the fangs of the hound Eternity in this my throat! 9 I am like a wounded bird flapping in circles. 10 Who knows where I shall fall? 11 O blesséd One! O God!  O my devourer! 12 Let me fall, fall down, fall away, afar, alone! 13 Let me fall! 14 Nor is there any rest, Sweet Heart, save in the cradle of royal Bacchus, the thigh of the most Holy One. 15 There rest, under the canopy of night. 16 Uranus chid Eros; Marsyas chid Olympas; I chid my beautiful lover with his sunray mane; shall I not sing? 17 Shall not mine incantations bring around me the wonderful company of the wood-gods, their bodies glistening with the ointment of moonlight and honey and myrrh? 18 18.Worshipful are ye, O my lovers; let us forward to the dimmest hollow! 19 There we will feast upon mandrake and upon moly! 20 There the lovely One shall spread us His holy banquet.  In the brown cakes of corn we shall taste the food of the world, and be strong. 21 In the ruddy and awful cup of death we shall drink the blood of the world, and be drunken! 22 Ohé! the song to Iao, the song to Iao! 23 Come, let us sing to thee, Iacchus invisible, Iacchus triumphant, Iacchus indicible! 24 Iacchus, O Iacchus, O Iacchus, be near us! 25 Then was the countenance of all time darkened, and the true light shone forth. 26 There was also a certain cry in an unknown tongue, whose stridency troubled the still waters of my soul, so that my mind and my body were healed of their disease, self-knowledge. 27 Yea, an angel troubled the waters. 28 This was the cry of Him: IIIOOShBTh-IO-IIIIAMAMThIBI-II. 29 Nor did I sing this for a thousand times a night for a thousand nights before Thou camest, O my flaming God, and pierced me with Thy spear.  Thy scarlet robe unfolded the whole heavens, so that the Gods said: All is burning: it is the end. 30 Also Thou didst set Thy lips to the wound and suck out a million eggs.  And Thy mother sat upon them, and lo! stars and stars and ultimate Things whereof stars are the atoms. 31 Then I perceived Thee, O my God, sitting like a white cat upon the trellis-work of the arbour; and the hum of the spinning worlds was but Thy pleasure. 32 O white cat, the sparks fly from Thy fur!  Thou dost crackle with splitting the worlds. 33 I have seen more of Thee in the white cat than I saw in the Vision of Æons. 34 In the boat of Ra did I travel, but I never found upon the visible Universe any being like unto Thee! 35 Thou wast like a winged white horse, and I raced Thee through eternity against the Lord of the Gods. 36 So still we race! 37 Thou wast like a flake of snow falling in the pine-clad woods. 38 In a moment Thou wast lost in a wilderness of the like and the unlike. 39 But I beheld the beautiful God at the back of the blizzard—and Thou wast He! 40 Also I read in a great book. 41 On ancient skin was written in letters of gold: Verbum fit Verbum. 42 Also Vitriol and the hierophant’s name V.V.V.V.V. 43 All this wheeled in fire, in star-fire, rare and far and utterly lonely—even as Thou and I, O desolate soul my God! 44 Yea, and the writing It is well. This is the voice that shook the earth. 45 Eight times he cried aloud, and by eight and by eight shall I count Thy favours, Oh Thou Elevenfold God 418! 46 Yea, and by many more; by the ten in the twenty-two directions; even as the perpendicular of the Pyramid—so shall Thy favours be. 47 If I number them, they are One. 48 Excellent is Thy love, Oh Lord!  Thou art revealed by the darkness, and he who gropeth in the horror of the groves shall haply catch Thee, even as a snake that seizeth on a little singing-bird. 49 I have caught Thee, O my soft thrush; I am like a hawk of mother-of-emerald; I catch Thee by instinct, though my eyes fail from Thy glory. 50 Yet they are but foolish folk yonder.  I see them on the yellow sand, all clad in Tyrian purple. 51 They draw their shining God unto the land in nets; they build a fire to the Lord of Fire, and cry unhallowed words, even the dreadful curse Amri maratza, maratza, atman deona lastadza maratza maritza—marán! 52 Then do they cook the shining god, and gulp him whole. 53 These are evil folk, O beautiful boy! let us pass on to the Otherworld. 54 Let us make ourselves into a pleasant bait, into a seductive shape! 55 I will be like a splendid naked woman with ivory breasts and golden nipples; my whole body shall be like the milk of the stars.  I will be lustrous and Greek, a courtesan of Delos, of the unstable Isle. 56 Thou shalt be like a little red worm on a hook. 57 But thou and I will catch our fish alike. 58 Then wilt thou be a shining fish with golden back and silver belly: I will be like a violent beautiful man, stronger than two score bulls, a man of the West bearing a great sack of precious jewels upon a staff that is greater than the axis of the all. 59 And the fish shall be sacrificed to Thee and the strong man crucified for Me, and Thou and I will kiss, and atone for the wrong of the Beginning; yea, for the wrong of the beginning. V 1 O my beautiful God!  I swim in Thy heart like a trout in the mountain torrent. 2 I leap from pool to pool in my joy; I am goodly with brown and gold and silver. 3 Why, I am lovelier than the russet autumn woods at the first snowfall. 4 And the crystal cave of my thought is lovelier than I. 5 Only one fish-hook can draw me out; it is a woman kneeling by the bank of the stream.  It is she that pours the bright dew over herself, and into the sand so that the river gushes forth. 6 There is a bird on yonder myrtle; only the song of that bird can draw me out of the pool of Thy heart, O my God! 7 Who is this Neapolitan boy that laughs in his happiness?  His lover is the mighty crater of the Mountain of Fire.  I saw his charred limbs borne down the slopes in a stealthy tongue of liquid stone. 8 And Oh! the chirp of the cicada! 9 I remember the days when I was cacique in Mexico. 10 O my God, wast Thou then as now my beautiful lover? 11 Was my boyhood then as now Thy toy, Thy joy? 12 Verily, I remember those iron days. 13 I remember how we drenched the bitter lakes with our torrent of gold; how we sank the treasurable image in the crater of Citlaltepetl. 14 How the good flame lifted us even unto the lowlands, setting us down in the impenetrable forest. 15 Yea, Thou wast a strange scarlet bird with a bill of gold.  I was Thy mate in the forests of the lowland; and ever we heard from afar the shrill chant of mutilated priests and the insane clamour of the Sacrifice of Maidens. 16 There was a weird winged God that told us of his wisdom. 17 We attained to be starry grains of gold dust in the sands of a slow river. 18 Yea, and that river was the river of space and time also. 19 We parted thence; ever to the smaller, ever to the greater, until now, O sweet God, we are ourselves, the same. 20 O God of mine, Thou art like a little white goat with lightning in his horns! 21 I love Thee, I love Thee. 22 Every breath, every word, every thought, every deed is an act of love with Thee. 23 The beat of my heart is the pendulum of love. 24 The songs of me are the soft sighs: 25 The thoughts of me are very rapture: 26 And my deeds are the myriads of Thy children, the stars and the atoms. 27 Let there be nothing! 28 Let all things drop into this ocean of love! 29 Be this devotion a potent spell to exorcise the demons of the Five! 30 Ah God, all is gone!  Thou dost consummate Thy rapture.  Falútli! Falútli! 31 There is a solemnity of the silence.  There is no more voice at all. 32 So shall it be unto the end.  We who were dust shall never fall away into the dust. 33 So shall it be. 34 Then, O my God, the breath of the Garden of Spices.  All these have a savour averse. 35 The cone is cut with an infinite ray; the curve of hyperbolic life springs into being. 36 Farther and farther we float; yet we are still.  It is the chain of systems that is falling away from us. 37 First falls the silly world; the world of the old grey land. 38 Falls it unthinkably far, with its sorrowful bearded face presiding over it; it fades to silence and woe. 39 We to silence and bliss, and the face is the laughing face of Eros. 40 Smiling we greet him with the secret signs. 41 He leads us into the Inverted Palace. 42 There is the Heart of Blood, a pyramid reaching its apex down beyond the Wrong of the Beginning. 43 Bury me unto Thy Glory, O beloved, O princely lover of this harlot maiden, within the Secretest Chamber of the Palace! 44 It is done quickly; yea, the seal is set upon the vault. 45 There is one that shall avail to open it. 46 Nor by memory, nor by imagination, nor by prayer, nor by fasting, nor by scourging, nor by drugs, nor by ritual, nor by meditation; only by passive love shall he avail. 47 He shall await the sword of the Beloved and bare his throat for the stroke. 48 Then shall his blood leap out and write me runes in the sky; yea, write me runes in the sky. VI 1 Thou wast a priestess, O my God, among the Druids; and we knew the powers of the oak. 2 We made us a temple of stones in the shape of the Universe, even as thou didst wear openly and I concealed. 3 There we performed many wonderful things by midnight. 4 By the waning moon did we work. 5 Over the plain came the atrocious cry of wolves. 6 We answered; we hunted with the pack. 7 We came even unto the new Chapel and Thou didst bear away the Holy Graal beneath Thy Druid vestments. 8 Secretly and by stealth did we drink of the informing sacrament. 9 Then a terrible disease seized upon the folk of the grey land; and we rejoiced. 10 O my God, disguise Thy glory! 11 Come as a thief, and let us steal away the Sacraments! 12 In our groves, in our cloistral cells, in our honeycomb of happiness, let us drink, let us drink! 13 It is the wine that tinges everything with the true tincture of infallible gold. 14 There are deep secrets in these songs.  It is not enough to hear the bird; to enjoy song he must be the bird. 15 I am the bird, and Thou art my song, O my glorious galloping God! 16 Thou reinest in the stars; thou drivest the constellations seven abreast through the circus of Nothingness. 17 Thou Gladiator God! 18 I play upon mine harp; Thou fightest the beasts and the flames. 19 Thou takest Thy joy in the music, and I in the fighting. 20 Thou and I are beloved of the Emperor. 21 See! he has summoned us to the Imperial dais. The night falls; it is a great orgy of worship and bliss. 22 The night falls like a spangled cloak from the shoulders of a prince upon a slave. 23 He rises a free man! 24 Cast thou, O prophet, the cloak upon these slaves! 25 A great night, and scarce fires therein; but freedom for the slave that its glory shall encompass. 26 So also I went down into the great sad city. 27 There dead Messalina bartered her crown for poison from the dead Locusta; there stood Caligula, and smote the seas of forgetfulness. 28 Who wast Thou, O Caesar, that Thou knewest God in an horse? 29 For lo! we beheld the White Horse of the Saxon engraven upon the earth; and we beheld the Horses of the Sea that flame about the old grey land, and the foam from their nostrils enlightens us! 30 Ah! but I love thee, God! 31 Thou art like a moon upon the ice-world. 32 Thou art like the dawn of the utmost snows upon the burnt-up flats of the tiger’s land. 33 By silence and by speech do I worship Thee. 34 But all is in vain. 35 Only Thy silence and Thy speech that worship me avail. 36 Wail, O ye folk of the grey land, for we have drunk your wine, and left ye but the bitter dregs. 37 Yet from these we will distil ye a liquor beyond the nectar of the Gods. 38 There is value in our tincture for a world of Spice and gold. 39 For our red powder of projection is beyond all possibilities. 40 There are few men; there are enough. 41 We shall be full of cup-bearers, and the wine is not stinted. 42 O dear my God! what a feast Thou hast provided. 43 Behold the lights and the flowers and the maidens! 44 Taste of the wines and the cakes and the splendid meats! 45 Breathe in the perfumes and the clouds of little gods like wood-nymphs that inhabit the nostrils! 46 Feel with your whole body the glorious smoothness of the marble coolth and the generous warmth of the sun and the slaves! 47 Let the Invisible inform all the devouring Light of its disruptive vigour! 48 Yea! all the world is split apart, as an old grey tree by the lightning! 49 Come, O ye gods, and let us feast. 50 Thou, O my darling, O my ceaseless Sparrow-God, my delight, my desire, my deceiver, come Thou and chirp at my right hand! 51 This was the tale of the memory of Al A’in the priest; yea, of Al A’in the priest. VII 1 By the burning of the incense was the Word revealed, and by the distant drug. 2 O meal and honey and oil!  O beautiful flag of the moon, that she hangs out in the centre of bliss! 3 These loosen the swathings of the corpse; these unbind the feet of Osiris, so that the flaming God may rage through the firmament with his fantastic spear. 4 But of pure black marble is the sorry statue, and the changeless pain of the eyes is bitter to the blind. 5 We understand the rapture of that shaken marble, torn by the throes of the crowned child, the golden rod of the golden God. 6 We know why all is hidden in the stone, within the coffin, within the mighty sepulchre, and we too answer Olalám! Imál! Tutúlu! as it is written in the ancient book. 7 Three words of that book are as life to a new æon; no god has read the whole. 8 But thou and I, O God, have written it page by page. 9 Ours is the elevenfold reading of the Elevenfold word. 10 These seven letters together make seven diverse words; each word is divine, and seven sentences are hidden therein. 11 Thou art the Word, O my darling, my lord, my master! 12 O come to me, mix the fire and the water, all shall dissolve. 13 I await Thee in sleeping, in waking.  I invoke Thee no more; for Thou art in me, O Thou who hast made me a beautiful instrument tuned to Thy rapture. 14 Yet art Thou ever apart, even as I. 15 I remember a certain holy day in the dusk of the year, in the dusk of the Equinox of Osiris, when first I beheld Thee visibly; when first the dreadful issue was fought out; when the Ibis-headed One charmed away the strife. 16 I remember Thy first kiss, even as a maiden should.  Nor in the dark byways was there another: Thy kisses abide. 17 There is none other beside Thee in the whole Universe of Love. 18 My God, I love Thee, O Thou goat with gilded horns! 19 Thou beautiful bull of Apis!  Thou beautiful serpent of Apep!  Thou beautiful child of the Pregnant Goddess! 20 Thou hast stirred in Thy sleep, O ancient sorrow of years!  Thou hast raised Thine head to strike, and all is dissolved into the Abyss of Glory. 21 An end to the letters of the words!  An end to the sevenfold speech. 22 Resolve me the wonder of it all into the figure of a gaunt swift camel striding over the sand. 23 Lonely is he, and abominable; yet hath he gained the crown. 24 Oh rejoice! rejoice! 25 My God!  O my God!  I am but a speck in the star-dust of ages; I am the Master of the Secret of Things. 26 I am the Revealer and the Preparer.  Mine is the Sword—and the Mitre and the Wingèd Wand! 27 I am the Initiator and the Destroyer.  Mine is the Globe—and the Bennu bird and the Lotus of Isis my daughter! 28 I am the One beyond these all; and I bear the symbols of the mighty darkness. 29 There shall be a sigil as of a vast black brooding ocean of death and the central blaze of darkness, radiating its night upon all. 30 It shall swallow up that lesser darkness. 31 But in that profound who shall answer: What is? 32 Not I. 33 Not Thou, O God! 34 Come, let us no more reason together; let us enjoy!  Let us be ourselves, silent, unique, apart. 35 O lonely woods of the world!  In what recesses will ye hide our love? 36 The forest of the spears of the Most High is called Night, and Hades, and the Day of Wrath; but I am His captain, and I bear His cup. 37 Fear me not with my spearmen!  They shall slay the demons with their petty prongs.  Ye shall be free. 38 Ah, slaves! ye will not—ye know not how to will. 39 Yet the music of my spears shall be a song of freedom. 40 A great bird shall sweep from the Abyss of Joy, and bear ye away to be my cup-bearers. 41 Come, O my God, in one last rapture let us attain to the Union with the Many! 42 In the silence of Things, in the Night of Forces, beyond the accursèd domain of the Three, let us enjoy our love! 43 My darling!  My darling! away, away beyond the Assembly and the Law and the Enlightenment unto an Anarchy of Solitude and Darkness! 44 For even thus must we veil the brilliance of our Self. 45 My darling!  My darling! 46 O my God, but the love in Me bursts over the bonds of Space and Time; my love is spilt among them that love not love. 47 My wine is poured out for them that never tasted wine. 48 The fumes thereof shall intoxicate them and the vigour of my love shall breed mighty children from their maidens. 49 Yea! without draught, without embrace:—and the Voice answered Yea! these things shall be. 50 Then I sought a Word for Myself; nay, for myself. 51 And the Word came: O Thou! it is well.  Heed naught!  I love Thee!  I love Thee! 52 Therefore had I faith unto the end of all; yea, unto the end of all. 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		Liber Porta Lucis sub figurâ X This book is an account of the sending forth of the Master by the AA and an explanation of his mission.  The Equinox VI, p. 3.  In Crowley's own words from Confessions: "This book is called "The Gate of Light".  It explains how those who have attained initiation, taking pity upon the darkness and minuteness of the earth, send forth a messenger to men.  The message follows.  It is an appeal to those who, being developed beyond the average of their fellows, see fit to take up the Great Work.  This Work is then described in general terms with a few hints of its conditions." 1 I behold a small dark orb, wheeling in an abyss of infinite space.  It is minute among a myriad vast ones, dark amid a myriad bright ones. 2 I who comprehend in myself all the vast and the minute, all the bright and the dark, have mitigated the brilliance of mine unutterable splendour, sending forth V.V.V.V.V. as a ray of my light, as a messenger unto that small dark orb. 3 Then V.V.V.V.V. taketh up the word, and sayeth: 4 Men and women of the Earth, to you am I come from the Ages beyond the Ages, from the Space beyond your vision; and I bring to you these words. 5 But they heard him not, for they were not ready to receive them. 6 But certain men heard and understood, and through them shall this Knowledge be made known. 7 The least therefore of them, the servant of them all, writeth this book. 8 He writeth for them that are ready.  Thus is it known if one be ready, if he be endowed with certain gifts, if he be fitted by birth, or by wealth, or by intelligence, or by some other manifest sign.  And the servants of the master by his insight shall judge of these. 9 This Knowledge is not for all men; few indeed are called, but of these few many are chosen. 10 This is the nature of the Work. 11 First, there are many and diverse conditions of life upon this earth.  In all of these is some seed of sorrow.  Who can escape from sickness and from old age and from death? 12 We are come to save our fellows from these things.  For there is a life intense with knowledge and extreme bliss which is untouched by any of them. 13 To this life we attain even here and now.  The adepts, the servants of V.V.V.V.V., have attained thereunto. 14 It is impossible to tell you of the splendours of that to which they have attained.  Little by little, as your eyes grow stronger, will we unveil to you the ineffable glory of the Path of the Adepts, and its nameless goal. 15 Even as a man ascending a steep mountain is lost to sight of his friends in the valley, so must the adept seem.  They shall say: He is lost in the clouds.  But he shall rejoice in the sunlight above them, and come to the eternal snows. 16 Or as a scholar may learn some secret language of the ancients, his friends shall say: "Look! he pretends to read this book.  But it is unintelligible - it is nonsense."  Yet he delights in the Odyssey, while they read vain and vulgar things. 17 We shall bring you to Absolute Truth, Absolute Light, Absolute Bliss. 18 Many adepts throughout the ages have sought to do this; but their words have been perverted by their successors, and again and again the Veil has fallen upon the Holy of Holies. 19 To you who yet wander in the Court of the Profane we cannot yet reveal all; but you will easily understand that the religions of the world are but symbols and veils of the Absolute Truth.  So also are the philosophies.  To the adept, seeing all these things from above, there seems nothing to choose between Buddha and Mohammed, between Atheism and Theism. 20 The many change and pass; the one remains.  Even as wood and coal and iron burn up together in one great flame, if only that furnace be of transcendent heat; so in the alembic of this spiritual alchemy, if only the zelator blow sufficiently upon his furnace all the systems of earth are consumed in the One Knowledge. 21 Nevertheless, as a fire cannot be started with iron alone, in the beginning one system may be suited for one seeker, another for another. 22 We therefore who are without the chains of ignorance, look closely into the heart of the seeker and lead him by the path which is best suited to his nature unto the ultimate end of all things, the supreme realization, the Life which abideth in Light, yea, the Life which abideth in Light. Return to top of page.

		Liber Trigrammaton sub figurâ XXVII Being a book of Trigrams of the Mutations of the TAO with the YIN and the YANG.  An account of the cosmic process: corresponding to the stanzas of Dzyan in another system. Here is Nothing under its three forms.  It is not, yet informeth all things. Now cometh the glory of the Single One, as an imperfection and stain. But by the Weak One the Mother was it equilibrated. Also the purity was divided by Strength, the force of the Demiurge. And the Cross was formulated in the Universe that as yet was not. But now the Imperfection became manifest, presiding over the fading of perfection. Also the Woman arose, and veiled the Upper Heaven with her body of stars. Now then a giant arose, of terrible strength; and asserted the Spirit in a secret rite. And the Master of the Temple balancing all things arose; his stature was above the Heaven and below Earth and Hell. Against him the Brothers of the Left-hand Path, confusing the symbols.  They concealed their horror [in this symbol]; for in truth they were The master flamed forth as a star and set a guard of Water in every Abyss. Also certain secret ones concealed the Light of Purity in themselves, protecting it from the Persecutions. Likewise also did certain sons and daughters of Hermes and of Aphrodite, more openly But the Enemy confused them.  They pretended to conceal that Light, that they might betray it, and profane it. Yet certain holy nuns concealed the secret in songs upon the lyre. Now did the Horror of Time pervert all things, hiding the Purity with a loathsome thing, a thing unnameable. Yea, and there arose sensualists upon the firmament, as a foul stain of storm upon the sky. And the Black Brothers raised their heads; yea, they unveiled themselves without shame or fear. Also there rose up a soul of filth and of weakness, and it corrupted all the rule of the Tao. Then only was Heaven established to bear sway; for only in the lowest corruption is form manifest. Also did Heaven manifest in violent light, And in soft light. Then were the waters gathered together from the heaven, And a crust of earth concealed the core of flame. Around the globe gathered the wide air, And men began to light fires upon the earth. Therefore was the end of it sorrow; yet in that sorrow a sixfold star of glory whereby they might see to return unto the stainless Abode; yea, unto the Stainless Abode. Return to top of page.

		Liber LXV Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente sub figurâ An account of the relations of the Aspirant with his Holy Guardian Angel.  This book is given to Probationers, as the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel is the Crown of the Outer College.  Similarly Liber VII is given to Neophytes, as the grade of Master of the Temple is the next resting-place, and Liber CCXX to Zelator, since that carries him to the highest of all possible grades.  Liber XXVII is given to the Practicus, as in this book is the ultimate foundation of the highest theoretical Qabalah, and Liber DCCCXIII to the Philosophus, as it is the foundation of the highest practical Qabalah.  The Equinox, number XI (vol iii, part i), p. 65. I 1 I am the Heart; and the Snake is entwined About the invisible core of the mind. Rise, O my snake! It is now is the hour Of the hooded and holy ineffable flower. Rise, O my snake, into brilliance of bloom On the corpse of Osiris afloat in the tomb! O heart of my mother, my sister, mine own, Thou art given to Nile, to the terror Typhon! Ah me! but the glory of ravening storm Enswathes thee and wraps thee in frenzy of form. Be still, O my soul! that the spell may dissolve As the wands are upraised, and the æons revolve. Behold! in my beauty how joyous Thou art, O Snake that caresses the crown of mine heart! Behold! we are one, and the tempest of years Goes down to the dusk, and the Beetle appears. O Beetle! the drone of Thy dolorous note Be ever the trance of this tremulous throat! I await the awaking! The summons on high From the Lord Adonai, from the Lord Adonai! 2 Adonai spake unto V.V.V.V.V., saying: There must ever be division in the word. 3 For the colours are many, but the light is one. 4 Therefore thou writest that which is of mother of emerald, and of lapis-lazuli, and of turquoise, and of alexandrite. 5 Another writeth the words of topaz, and of deep amethyst, and of gray sapphire, and of deep sapphire with a tinge as of blood. 6 Therefore do ye fret yourselves because of this. 7 Be not contented with the image. 8 I who am the Image of an Image say this. 9 Debate not of the image, saying Beyond!  Beyond!  One mounteth unto the Crown by the moon and by the Sun, and by the arrow, and by the Foundation, and by the dark home of the stars from the black earth. 10 Not otherwise may ye reach unto the Smooth Point. 11 Nor is it fitting for the cobbler to prate of the Royal matter.  O cobbler! mend me this shoe, that I may walk.  O king! if I be thy son, let us speak of the Embassy to the King thy Brother. 12 Then was there silence.  Speech had done with us awhile.  There is a light so strenuous that it is not perceived as light. 13 Wolf’s bane is not so sharp as steel; yet it pierceth the body more subtly. 14 Even as evil kisses corrupt the blood, so do my words devour the spirit of man. 15 I breathe, and there is infinite dis-ease in the spirit. 16 As an acid eats into steel, as a cancer that utterly corrupts the body; so am I unto the spirit of man. 17 I shall not rest until I have dissolved it all. 18 So also the light that is absorbed.  One absorbs little and is called white and glistening; one absorbs all and is called black. 19 Therefore, O my darling, art thou black. 20 O my beautiful, I have likened thee to a jet Nubian slave, a boy of melancholy eyes. 21 O the filthy one! the dog! they cry against thee. Because thou art my beloved. 22 Happy are they that praise thee; for they see thee with Mine eyes. 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. 24 Yea! the night shall cover all, the night shall cover all. 25 Thou wast long seeking Me; thou didst run forward so fast that I was unable to come up with thee. O thou darling fool! what bitterness thou didst crown thy days withal. 26 Now I am with thee; I will never leave thy being. 27 For I am the soft sinuous one entwined about thee, heart of gold! 28 My head is jewelled with twelve stars; My body is white as milk of the stars; it is bright with the blue of the abyss of stars invisible. 29 I have found that which could not be found; I have found a vessel of quicksilver. 30 Thou shalt instruct thy servant in his ways, thou shalt speak often with him. 31 (The scribe looketh upwards and crieth) Amen!  Thou hast spoken it, Lord God! 32 Further Adonai spake unto V.V.V.V.V. and said: 33 Let us take our delight in the multitude of men! Let us shape unto ourselves a boat of mother-of-pearl from them, that we may ride upon the river of Amrit! 34 Thou seest yon petal of amaranth, blown by the wind from the low sweet brows of Hathor? 35 (The Magister saw it and rejoiced in the beauty of it.)  Listen! 36 (From a certain world came an infinite wail.) That falling petal seemed to the little ones a wave to engulph their continent. 37 So they will reproach thy servant, saying: Who hath set thee to save us? 38 He will be sore distressed. 39 All they understand not that thou and I are fashioning a boat of mother-of-pearl.  We will sail down the river of Amrit even to the yew-groves of Yama, where we may rejoice exceedingly. 40 The joy of men shall be our silver gleam, their woe our blue gleam—all in the mother-of-pearl. 41 (The scribe was wroth thereat.  He spake: O Adonai and my master, I have borne the inkhorn and the pen without pay, in order that I might search this river of Amrit, and sail thereon as one of ye.  This I demand for my fee, that I partake of the echo of your kisses.) 42 (And immediately it was granted unto him.) 43 (Nay; but not therewith was he content.  By an infinite abasement unto shame did he strive.  Then a voice:) 44 Thou strivest ever; even in thy yielding thou strivest to yield—and lo! thou yieldest not. 45 Go thou unto the outermost places and subdue all things. 46 Subdue thy fear and thy disgust. Then—yield! 47 There was a maiden that strayed among the corn, and sighed; then grew a new birth, a narcissus, and therein she forgot her sighing and her loneliness. 48 Even instantly rode Hades heavily upon her, and ravished her away. 49 (Then the scribe knew the narcissus in his heart; but because it came not to his lips, therefore was he shamed and spake no more.) 50 Adonai spake yet again with V.V.V.V.V. and said: The earth is ripe for vintage; let us eat of her grapes, and be drunken thereon. 51 And V.V.V.V.V. answered and said: O my lord, my dove, my excellent one, how shall this word seem unto the children of men? 52 And He answered him: Not as thou canst see. It is certain that every letter of this cipher hath some value; but who shall determine the value?  For it varieth ever, according to the subtlety of Him that made it. 53 And He answered Him: Have I not the key thereof? I am clothed with the body of flesh; I am one with the Eternal and Omnipotent God. 54 Then said Adonai: Thou hast the Head of the Hawk, and thy Phallus is the Phallus of Asar.  Thou knowest the white, and thou knowest the black, and thou knowest that these are one.  But why seekest thou the knowledge of their equivalence? 55 And he said: That my Work may be right. 56 And Adonai said: The strong brown reaper swept his swathe and rejoiced.  The wise man counted his muscles, and pondered, and understood not, and was sad. Reap thou, and rejoice! 57 Then was the Adept glad, and lifted his arm. Lo! an earthquake, and plague, and terror on the earth! A casting down of them that sate in high places; a famine upon the multitude! 58 And the grape fell ripe and rich into his mouth. 59 Stained is the purple of thy mouth, O brilliant one, with the white glory of the lips of Adonai. 60 The foam of the grape is like the storm upon the sea; the ships tremble and shudder; the shipmaster is afraid. 61 That is thy drunkenness, O holy one, and the winds whirl away the soul of the scribe into the happy haven. 62 O Lord God! let the haven be cast down by the fury of the storm!  Let the foam of the grape tincture my soul with Thy light! 63 Bacchus grew old, and was Silenus; Pan was ever Pan for ever and ever more throughout the æons. 64 Intoxicate the inmost, O my lover, not the outermost! 65 So was it—ever the same!  I have aimed at the peeled wand of my God, and I have hit; yea, I have hit. II 1 I passed into the mountain of lapis-lazuli, even as a green hawk between the pillars of turquoise that is seated upon the throne of the East. 2 So came I to Duant, the starry abode, and I heard voices crying aloud. 3 O Thou that sittest upon the Earth! (so spake a certain Veiled One to me) thou art not greater than thy mother!  Thou speck of dust infinitesimal! Thou art the Lord of Glory, and the unclean dog. 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. 5 I suffered the deadly embrace of the Snake and of the Goat; I paid the infernal homage to the shame of Khem. 6 Therein was this virtue, that the One became the all. 7 Moreover I beheld a vision of a river.  There was a little boat thereon; and in it under purple sails was a golden woman, an image of Asi wrought in finest gold.  Also the river was of blood, and the boat of shining steel.  Then I loved her; and, loosing my girdle, cast myself into the stream. 8 I gathered myself into the little boat, and for many days and nights did I love her, burning beautiful incense before her. 9 Yea! I gave her of the flower of my youth. 10 But she stirred not; only by my kisses I defiled her so that she turned to blackness before me. 11 Yet I worshipped her, and gave her of the flower of my youth. 12 Also it came to pass, that thereby she sickened, and corrupted before me.  Almost I cast myself into the stream. 13 Then at the end appointed her body was whiter than the milk of the stars, and her lips red and warm as the sunset, and her life of a white heat like the heat of the midmost sun. 14 Then rose she up from the abyss of Ages of Sleep, and her body embraced me.  Altogether I melted into her beauty and was glad. 15 The river also became the river of Amrit, and the little boat was the chariot of the flesh, and the sails thereof the blood of the heart that beareth me, that beareth me. 16 O serpent woman of the stars!  I, even I, have fashioned Thee from a pale image of fine gold. 17 Also the Holy One came upon me, and I beheld a white swan floating in the blue. 18 Between its wings I sate, and the æons fled away. 19 Then the swan flew and dived and soared, yet no whither we went. 20 A little crazy boy that rode with me spake unto the swan, and said: 21 Who art thou that dost float and fly and dive and soar in the inane?  Behold, these many æons have passed; whence camest thou?  Whither wilt thou go? 22 And laughing I chid him, saying: No whence!  No whither! 23 The swan being silent, he answered: Then, if with no goal, why this eternal journey? 24 And I laid my head against the Head of the Swan, and laughed, saying: Is there not joy ineffable in this aimless winging?  Is there not weariness and impatience for who would attain to some goal? 25 And the swan was ever silent.  Ah! but we floated in the infinite Abyss.  Joy!  Joy! White swan, bear thou ever me up between thy wings! 26 O silence!  O rapture!  O end of things visible and invisible!  This is all mine, who am Not. 27 Radiant God!  Let me fashion an image of gems and gold for Thee! that the people may cast it down and trample it to dust!  That Thy glory may be seen of them. 28 Nor shall it be spoken in the markets that I am come who should come; but Thy coming shall be the one word. 29 Thou shalt manifest Thyself in the unmanifest; in the secret places men shall meet with thee, and Thou shalt overcome them. 30 I saw a pale sad boy that lay upon the marble in the sunlight, and wept.  By his side was the forgotten lute.  Ah! but he wept. 31 Then came an eagle from the abyss of glory and overshadowed him.  So black was the shadow that he was no more visible. 32 But I heard the lute lively discoursing through the blue still air. 33 Ah! messenger of the beloved One, let Thy shadow be over me! 34 Thy name is Death, it may be, or Shame, or Love. So thou bringest me tidings of the Beloved One, I shall not ask thy name. 35 Where is now the Master? cry the little crazy boys. He is dead!  He is shamed!  He is wedded! and their mockery shall ring round the world. 36 But the Master shall have had his reward. The laughter of the mockers shall be a ripple in the hair of the Beloved One. 37 Behold! the Abyss of the Great Deep.  Therein is a mighty dolphin, lashing his sides with the force of the waves. 38 There is also an harper of gold, playing infinite tunes. 39 Then the dolphin delighted therein, and put off his body, and became a bird. 40 The harper also laid aside his harp, and played infinite tunes upon the Pan-pipe. 41 Then the bird desired exceedingly this bliss, and laying down its wings became a faun of the forest. 42 The harper also laid down his Pan-pipe, and with the human voice sang his infinite tunes. 43 Then the faun was enraptured, and followed far; at last the harper was silent, and the faun became Pan in the midst of the primal forest of Eternity. 44 Thou canst not charm the dolphin with silence, O my prophet! 45 Then the adept was rapt away in bliss, and the beyond of bliss, and exceeded the excess of excess. 46 Also his body shook and staggered with the burden of that bliss and that excess and that ultimate nameless. 47 They cried He is drunk or He is mad or He is in pain or He is about to die; and he heard them not. 48 O my Lord, my beloved!  How shall I indite songs, when even the memory of the shadow of thy glory is a thing beyond all music of speech or of silence? 49 Behold!  I am a man.  Even a little child might not endure Thee.  And lo! 50 I was alone in a great park, and by a certain hillock was a ring of deep enamelled grass wherein green-clad ones, most beautiful, played. 51 In their play I came even unto the land of Fairy Sleep. All my thoughts were clad in green; most beautiful were they. 52 All night they danced and sang; but Thou art the morning, O my darling, my serpent that twinest Thee about this heart. 53 I am the heart, and Thou the serpent.  Wind Thy coils closer about me, so that no light nor bliss may penetrate. 54 Crush out the blood of me, as a grape upon the tongue of a white Doric girl that languishes with her lover in the moonlight. 55 Then let the End awake.  Long hast thou slept, O great God Terminus!  Long ages hast thou waited at the end of the city and the roads thereof. Awake Thou! wait no more! 56 Nay, Lord! but I am come to Thee.  It is I that wait at last. 57 The prophet cried against the mountain; come thou hither, that I may speak with thee! 58 The mountain stirred not.  Therefore went the prophet unto the mountain, and spake unto it.  But the feet of the prophet were weary, and the mountain heard not his voice. 59 But I have called unto Thee, and I have journeyed unto Thee, and it availed me not. 60 I waited patiently, and Thou wast with me from the beginning. 61 This now I know, O my beloved, and we are stretched at our ease among the vines. 62 But these thy prophets; they must cry aloud and scourge themselves; they must cross trackless wastes and unfathomed oceans; to await Thee is the end, not the beginning. 63 Let darkness cover up the writing!  Let the scribe depart among his ways. 64 But thou and I are stretched at our ease among the vines; what is he? 65 O Thou beloved One! is there not an end?  Nay, but there is an end.  Awake! arise! gird up thy limbs, O thou runner; bear thou the Word unto the mighty cities, yea, unto the mighty cities. III 1 Verily and Amen!  I passed through the deep sea, and by the rivers of running water that abound therein, and I came unto the Land of No Desire. 2 Wherein was a white unicorn with a silver collar, whereon was graven the aphorism Linea viridis gyrat universa. 3 Then the word of Adonai came unto me by the mouth of the Magister mine, saying: O heart that art girt about with the coils of the old serpent, lift up thyself unto the mountain of initiation! 4 But I remembered.  Yea, Than, yea, Theli, yea, Lilith! these three were about me from of old.  For they are one. 5 Beautiful wast thou, O Lilith, thou serpent-woman! 6 Thou wast lithe and delicious to the taste, and thy perfume was of musk mingled with ambergris. 7 Close didst thou cling with thy coils unto the heart, and it was as the joy of all the spring. 8 But I beheld in thee a certain taint, even in that wherein I delighted. 9 I beheld in thee the taint of thy father the ape, of thy grandsire the Blind Worm of Slime. 10 I gazed upon the Crystal of the Future, and I saw the horror of the End of thee. 11 Further, I destroyed the time Past, and the time to Come—had I not the Power of the Sand-glass? 12 But in the very hour I beheld corruption. 13 Then I said: O my beloved, O Lord Adonai, I pray thee to loosen the coils of the serpent! 14 But she was closed fast upon me, so that my Force was stayed in its inception. 15 Also I prayed unto the Elephant God, the Lord of Beginnings, who breaketh down obstruction. 16 These gods came right quickly to mine aid.  I beheld them; I joined myself unto them; I was lost in their vastness. 17 Then I beheld myself compassed about with the Infinite Circle of Emerald that encloseth the Universe. 18 O Snake of Emerald, Thou hast no time Past, no time To Come.  Verily Thou art not. 19 Thou art delicious beyond all taste and touch, Thou art not-to-be-beheld for glory, Thy voice is beyond the Speech and the Silence and the Speech therein, and Thy perfume is of pure ambergris, that is not weighed against the finest gold of the fine gold. 20 Also Thy coils are of infinite range; the Heart that Thou dost encircle is an Universal Heart. 21 I, and Me, and Mine were sitting with lutes in the market-place of the great city, the city of the violets and the roses. 22 The night fell, and the music of the lutes was stilled. 23 The tempest arose, and the music of the lutes was stilled. 24 The hour passed, and the music of the lutes was stilled. 25 But Thou art Eternity and Space; Thou art Matter and Motion; and Thou art the negation of all these things. 26 For there is no Symbol of Thee. 27 If I say Come up upon the mountains! the celestial waters flow at my word.  But thou art the Water beyond the waters. 28 The red three-angled heart hath been set up in Thy shrine; for the priests despised equally the shrine and the god. 29 Yet all the while Thou wast hidden therein, as the Lord of Silence is hidden in the buds of the lotus. 30 Thou art Sebek the crocodile against Asar; thou art Mati, the Slayer in the Deep.  Thou art Typhon, the Wrath of the Elements, O Thou who transcendest the Forces in their Concourse and Cohesion, in their Death and their Disruption.  Thou art Python, the terrible serpent about the end of all things! 31 I turned me about thrice in every way; and always I came at the last unto Thee. 32 Many things I beheld mediate and immediate; but, beholding them no more, I beheld Thee. 33 Come thou, O beloved One, O Lord God of the Universe, O Vast One, O Minute One!  I am Thy beloved. 34 All day I sing of Thy delight; all night I delight in Thy song. 35 There is no other day or night than this. 36 Thou art beyond the day and the night; I am Thyself, O my Maker, my Master, my Mate! 37 I am like the little red dog that sitteth upon the knees of the Unknown. 38 Thou hast brought me into great delight.  Thou hast given me of Thy flesh to eat and of Thy blood for an offering of intoxication. 39 Thou hast fastened the fangs of Eternity in my soul, and the Poison of the Infinite hath consumed me utterly. 40 I am become like a luscious devil of Italy; a fair strong woman with worn cheeks, eaten out with hunger for kisses.  She hath played the harlot in divers palaces; she hath given her body to the beasts. 41 She hath slain her kinsfolk with strong venom of toads; she hath been scourged with many rods. 42 She hath been broken in pieces upon the Wheel; the hands of the hangman have bound her unto it. 43 The fountains of water have been loosed upon her; she hath struggled with exceeding torment. 44 She hath burst in sunder with the weight of the waters; she hath sunk into the awful Sea. 45 So am I, O Adonai, my lord, and such are the waters of Thine intolerable Essence. 46 So am I, O Adonai, my beloved, and Thou hast burst me utterly in sunder. 47 I am shed out like spilt blood upon the mountains; the Ravens of Dispersion have borne me utterly away. 48 Therefore is the seal unloosed, that guarded the Eighth abyss; therefore is the vast sea as a veil; therefore is there a rending asunder of all things. 49 Yea, also verily Thou art the cool still water of the wizard fount.  I have bathed in Thee, and lost me in Thy stillness. 50 That which went in as a brave boy of beautiful limbs cometh forth as a maiden, as a little child for perfection. 51 O Thou light and delight, ravish me away into the milky ocean of the stars! 52 O Thou Son of a light-transcending mother, blessed be Thy name, and the Name of Thy Name, throughout the ages! 53 Behold! I am a butterfly at the Source of Creation; let me die before the hour, falling dead into Thine infinite stream! 54 Also the stream of the stars floweth ever majestical unto the Abode; bear me away upon the Bosom of Nuit! 55 This is the world of the waters of Maim; this is the bitter water that becometh sweet.  Thou art beautiful and bitter, O golden one, O my Lord Adonai, O thou Abyss of Sapphire! 56 I follow Thee, and the waters of Death fight strenuously against me.  I pass unto the Waters beyond Death and beyond Life. 57 How shall I answer the foolish man?  In no way shall he come to the Identity of Thee! 58 But I am the Fool that heedeth not the Play of the Magician.  Me doth the Woman of the Mysteries instruct in vain; I have burst the bonds of Love and of Power and of Worship. 59 Therefore is the Eagle made one with the Man, and the gallows of infamy dance with the fruit of the just. 60 I have descended, O my darling, into the black shining waters, and I have plucked Thee forth as a black pearl of infinite preciousness. 61 I have gone down, O my God, into the abyss of the all, and I have found Thee in the midst under the guise of No Thing. 62 But as Thou art the Last, Thou art also the Next, and as the Next do I reveal Thee to the multitude. 63 They that ever desired Thee shall obtain Thee, even at the End of their Desire. 64 Glorious, glorious, glorious art Thou, O my lover supernal, O Self of myself. 65 For I have found Thee alike in the Me and the Thee; there is no difference, O my beautiful, my desirable One!  In the One and the Many have I found Thee; yea, I have found Thee. IV 1 O crystal heart!  I the Serpent clasp Thee; I drive home mine head into the central core of Thee, O God my beloved. 2 Even as on the resounding wind-swept heights of Mitylene some god-like woman casts aside the lyre, and with her locks aflame as an aureole, plunges into the wet heart of the creation, so I, O Lord my God! 3 There is a beauty unspeakable in this heart of corruption, where the flowers are aflame. 4 Ah me! but the thirst of Thy joy parches up this throat, so that I cannot sing. 5 I will make me a little boat of my tongue, and explore the unknown rivers.  It may be that the everlasting salt may turn to sweetness, and that my life may be no longer athirst. 6 O ye that drink of the brine of your desire, ye are nigh to madness!  Your torture increaseth as ye drink, yet still ye drink.  Come up through the creeks to the fresh water; I shall be waiting for you with my kisses. 7 As the bezoar-stone that is found in the belly of the cow, so is my lover among lovers. 8 O honey boy!  Bring me Thy cool limbs hither!  Let us sit awhile in the orchard, until the sun go down!  Let us feast on the cool grass!  Bring wine, ye slaves, that the cheeks of my boy may flush red. 9 In the garden of immortal kisses, O thou brilliant One, shine forth!  Make Thy mouth an opium-poppy, that one kiss is the key to the infinite sleep and lucid, the sleep of Shi-loh-am. 10 In my sleep I beheld the Universe like a clear crystal without one speck. 11 There are purse-proud penniless ones that stand at the door of the tavern and prate of their feats of wine-bibbing. 12 There are purse-proud penniless ones that stand at the door of the tavern and revile the guests. 13 The guests dally upon couches of mother-of-pearl in the garden; the noise of the foolish men is hidden from them. 14 Only the inn-keeper feareth lest the favour of the king be withdrawn from him. 15 Thus spake the Magister V.V.V.V.V. unto Adonai his God, as they played together in the starlight over against the deep black pool that is in the Holy Place of the Holy House beneath the Altar of the Holiest One. 16 But Adonai laughed, and played more languidly. 17 Then the scribe took note, and was glad.  But Adonai had no fear of the Magician and his play. For it was Adonai who had taught all his tricks to the Magician. 18 And the Magister entered into the play of the Magician.  When the Magician laughed he laughed; all as a man should do. 19 And Adonai said: Thou art enmeshed in the web of the Magician.  This He said subtly, to try him. 20 But the Magister gave the sign of the Magistry, and laughed back on Him: O Lord, O beloved, did these fingers relax on Thy curls, or these eyes turn away from Thine eye? 21 And Adonai delighted in him exceedingly. 22 Yea, O my master, thou art the beloved of the Beloved One; the Bennu Bird is set up in Philæ not in vain. 23 I who was the priestess of Ahathoor rejoice in your love.  Arise, O Nile-God, and devour the holy place of the Cow of Heaven!  Let the milk of the stars be drunk up by Sebek the dweller of Nile! 24 Arise, O serpent Apep, Thou art Adonai the beloved one!  Thou art my darling and my lord, and Thy poison is sweeter than the kisses of Isis the mother of the Gods! 25 For Thou art He!  Yea, Thou shalt swallow up Asi and Asar, and the children of Ptah.  Thou shalt pour forth a flood of poison to destroy the works of the Magician.  Only the Destroyer shall devour Thee; Thou shalt blacken his throat, wherein his spirit abideth.  Ah, serpent Apep, but I love Thee! 26 My God!  Let Thy secret fang pierce to the marrow of the little secret bone that I have kept against the Day of Vengeance of Hoor-Ra.  Let Kheph-Ra sound his sharded drone! let the jackals of Day and Night howl in the wilderness of Time! let the Towers of the Universe totter, and the guardians hasten away!  For my Lord hath revealed Himself as a mighty serpent, and my heart is the blood of His body. 27 I am like a love-sick courtesan of Corinth.  I have toyed with kings and captains, and made them my slaves.  To-day I am the slave of the little asp of death; and who shall loosen our love? 28 Weary, weary! saith the scribe, who shall lead me to the sight of the Rapture of my master? 29 The body is weary and the soul is sore weary and sleep weighs down their eyelids; yet ever abides the sure consciousness of ecstacy, unknown, yet known in that its being is certain.  O Lord, be my helper, and bring me to the bliss of the Beloved! 30 I came to the house of the Beloved, and the wine was like fire that flieth with green wings through the world of waters. 31 I felt the red lips of nature and the black lips of perfection.  Like sisters they fondled me their little brother; they decked me out as a bride; they mounted me for Thy bridal chamber. 32 They fled away at Thy coming; I was alone before Thee. 33 I trembled at Thy coming, O my God, for Thy messenger was more terrible than the Death-star. 34 On the threshold stood the fulminant figure of Evil, the Horror of emptiness, with his ghastly eyes like poisonous wells.  He stood, and the chamber was corrupt; the air stank.  He was an old and gnarled fish more hideous than the shells of Abaddon. 35 He enveloped me with his demon tentacles; yea, the eight fears took hold upon me. 36 But I was anointed with the right sweet oil of the Magister; I slipped from the embrace as a stone from the sling of a boy of the woodlands. 37 I was smooth and hard as ivory; the horror gat no hold.  Then at the noise of the wind of Thy coming he was dissolved away, and the abyss of the great void was unfolded before me. 38 Across the waveless sea of eternity Thou didst ride with Thy captains and Thy hosts; with Thy chariots and horsemen and spearmen didst Thou travel through the blue. 39 Before I saw Thee Thou wast already with me; I was smitten through by Thy marvellous spear. 40 I was stricken as a bird by the bolt of the thunderer; I was pierced as the thief by the Lord of the Garden. 41 O my Lord, let us sail upon the sea of blood! 42 There is a deep taint beneath the ineffable bliss; it is the taint of generation. 43 Yea, though the flower wave bright in the sunshine, the root is deep in the darkness of earth. 44 Praise to thee, O beautiful dark earth, thou art the mother of a million myriads of myriads of flowers. 45 Also I beheld my God, and the countenance of Him was a thousandfold brighter than the lightning.  Yet in his heart I beheld the slow and dark One, the ancient one, the devourer of His children. 46 In the height and the abyss, O my beautiful, there is no thing, verily, there is no thing at all, that is not altogether and perfectly fashioned for Thy delight. 47 Light cleaveth unto Light, and filth to filth; with pride one contemneth another.  But not Thou, who art all, and beyond it; who art absolved from the Division of the Shadows. 48 O day of Eternity, let Thy wave break in foamless glory of sapphire upon the laborious coral of our making! 49 We have made us a ring of glistening white sand, strewn wisely in the midst of the Delightful Ocean. 50 Let the palms of brilliance flower upon our island; we shall eat of their fruit, and be glad. 51 But for me the lustral water, the great ablution, the dissolving of the soul in that resounding abyss. 52 I have a little son like a wanton goat; my daughter is like an unfledged eaglet; they shall get them fins, that they may swim. 53 That they may swim, O my beloved, swim far in the warm honey of Thy being, O blessed one, O boy of beatitude! 54 This heart of mine is girt about with the serpent that devoureth his own coils. 55 When shall there be an end, O my darling, O when shall the Universe and the Lord thereof be utterly swallowed up? 56 Nay! who shall devour the Infinite? who shall undo the Wrong of the Beginning? 57 Thou criest like a white cat upon the roof of the Universe; there is none to answer Thee. 58 Thou art like a lonely pillar in the midst of the sea; there is none to behold Thee, O Thou who beholdest all! 59 Thou dost faint, thou dost fail, thou scribe; cried the desolate Voice; but I have filled thee with a wine whose savour thou knowest not. 60 It shall avail to make drunken the people of the old gray sphere that rolls in the infinite Far-off; they shall lap the wine as dogs that lap the blood of a beautiful courtesan pierced through by the Spear of a swift rider through the city. 61 I too am the Soul of the desert; thou shalt seek me yet again in the wilderness of sand. 62 At thy right hand a great lord and a comely; at thy left hand a woman clad in gossamer and gold and having the stars in her hair.  Ye shall journey far into a land of pestilence and evil; ye shall encamp in the river of a foolish city forgotten; there shall ye meet with Me. 63 There will I make Mine habitation; as for bridal will I come bedecked and anointed; there shall the Consummation be accomplished. 64 O my darling, I also wait for the brilliance of the hour ineffable, when the universe shall be like a girdle for the midst of the ray of our love, extending beyond the permitted end of the endless One. 65 Then, O thou heart, will I the serpent eat thee wholly up; yea, I will eat thee wholly up. V 1 Ah! my Lord Adonai, that dalliest with the Magister in the Treasure-House of Pearls, let me listen to the echo of your kisses. 2 Is not the starry heaven shaken as a leaf at the tremulous rapture of your love?  Am not I the flying spark of light whirled away by the great wind of your perfection? 3 Yea, cried the Holy One, and from Thy spark will I the Lord kindle a great light; I will burn through the great city in the old and desolate land; I will cleanse it from its great impurity. 4 And thou, O prophet, shalt see these things, and thou shalt heed them not. 5 Now is the Pillar established in the Void; now is Asi fulfilled of Asar; now is Hoor let down into the Animal Soul of Things like a fiery star that falleth upon the darkness of the earth. 6 Through the midnight thou art dropt, O my child, my conqueror, my sword-girt captain, O Hoor! and they shall find thee as a black gnarl'd glittering stone, and they shall worship thee. 7 My prophet shall prophesy concerning thee; around thee the maidens shall dance, and bright babes be born unto them.  Thou shalt inspire the proud ones with infinite pride, and the humble ones with an ecstasy of abasement; all this shall transcend the Known and the Unknown with somewhat that hath no name.  For it is as the abyss of the Arcanum that is opened in the secret Place of Silence. 8 Thou hast come hither, O my prophet, through grave paths.  Thou hast eaten of the dung of the Abominable Ones; thou hast prostrated thyself before the Goat and the Crocodile; the evil men have made thee a plaything; thou hast wandered as a painted harlot, ravishing with sweet scent and Chinese colouring, in the streets; thou hast darkened thine eyepits with Kohl; thou hast tinted thy lips with vermilion; thou hast plastered thy cheeks with ivory enamels.  Thou hast played the wanton in every gate and by-way of the great city.  The men of the city have lusted after thee to abuse thee and to beat thee.  They have mouthed the golden spangles of fine dust wherewith thou didst bedeck thine hair; they have scourged the painted flesh of thee with their whips; thou hast suffered unspeakable things. 9 But I have burnt within thee as a pure flame without oil.  In the midnight I was brighter than the moon; in the daytime I exceeded utterly the sun; in the byways of thy being I inflamed, and dispelled the illusion. 10 Therefore thou art wholly pure before Me; therefore thou art My virgin unto eternity. 11 Therefore I love thee with surpassing love; therefore they that despise thee shall adore thee. 12 Thou shalt be lovely and pitiful toward them; thou shalt heal them of the unutterable evil. 13 They shall change in their destruction, even as two dark stars that crash together in the abyss, and blaze up in an infinite burning. 14 All this while did Adonai pierce my being with his sword that hath four blades; the blade of the thunderbolt, the blade of the Pylon, the blade of the serpent, the blade of the Phallus. 15 Also he taught me the holy unutterable word Ararita, so that I melted the sixfold gold into a single invisible point, whereof naught may be spoken. 16 For the Magistry of this Opus is a secret magistry; and the sign of the master thereof is a certain ring of lapis-lazuli with the name of my master, who am I, and the Eye in the Midst thereof. 17 Also He spake and said: This is a secret sign, and thou shalt not disclose it unto the profane, nor unto the neophyte, nor unto the zelator, nor unto the practicus, nor unto the philosophus, nor unto the lesser adept, nor unto the greater adept. 18 But unto the exempt adept thou shalt disclose thyself if thou have need of him for the lesser operations of thine art. 19 Accept the worship of the foolish people, whom thou hatest.  The Fire is not defiled by the altars of the Ghebers, nor is the Moon contaminated by the incense of them that adore the Queen of Night. 20 Thou shalt dwell among the people as a precious diamond among cloudy diamonds, and crystals, and pieces of glass.  Only the eye of the just merchant shall behold thee, and plunging in his hand shall single thee out and glorify thee before men. 21 But thou shalt heed none of this.  Thou shalt be ever the heart, and I the serpent will coil close about thee.  My coil shall never relax throughout the æons.  Neither change nor sorrow nor unsubstantiality shall have thee; for thou art passed beyond all these. 22 Even as the diamond shall glow red for the rose, and green for the rose-leaf; so shalt thou abide apart from the Impressions. 23 I am thou, and the Pillar is ’stablished in the void. 24 Also thou art beyond the stabilities of Being and of Consciousness and of Bliss; for I am thou, and the Pillar is ’stablished in the void. 25 Also thou shalt discourse of these things unto the man that writeth them, and he shall partake of them as a sacrament; for I who am thou am he, and the Pillar is ’stablished in the void. 26 From the Crown to the Abyss, so goeth it single and erect.  Also the limitless sphere shall glow with the brilliance thereof. 27 Thou shalt rejoice in the pools of adorable water; thou shalt bedeck thy damsels with pearls of fecundity; thou shalt light flame like licking tongues of liquor of the Gods between the pools. 28 Also thou shalt convert the all-sweeping air into the winds of pale water, thou shalt transmute the earth into a blue abyss of wine. 29 Ruddy are the gleams of ruby and gold that sparkle therein; one drop shall intoxicate the Lord of the Gods my servant. 30 Also Adonai spake unto V.V.V.V.V. saying: O my little one, my tender one, my little amorous one, my gazelle, my beautiful, my boy, let us fill up the pillar of the Infinite with an infinite kiss! 31 So that the stable was shaken and the unstable became still. 32 They that beheld it cried with a formidable affright: The end of things is come upon us. 33 And it was even so. 34 Also I was in the spirit vision and beheld a parricidal pomp of atheists, coupled by two and by two in the supernal ecstasy of the stars.  They did laugh and rejoice exceedingly, being clad in purple robes and drunken with purple wine, and their whole soul was one purple flower-flame of holiness. 35 They beheld not God; they beheld not the Image of God; therefore were they arisen to the Palace of the Splendour Ineffable.  A sharp sword smote out before them, and the worm Hope writhed in its death-agony under their feet. 36 Even as their rapture shore asunder the visible Hope, so also the Fear Invisible fled away and was no more. 37 O ye that are beyond Aormuzdi and Ahrimanes! blessèd are ye unto the ages. 38 They shaped Doubt as a sickle, and reaped the flowers of Faith for their garlands. 39 They shaped Ecstasy as a spear, and pierced the ancient dragon that sat upon the stagnant water. 40 Then the fresh springs were unloosed, that the folk athirst might be at ease. 41 And again I was caught up into the presence of my Lord Adonai, and the knowledge and Conversation of the Holy One, the Angel that Guardeth me. 42 O Holy Exalted One, O Self beyond self.  O Self-Luminous Image of the Unimaginable Naught, O my darling, my beautiful, come Thou forth and follow me. 43 Adonai, divine Adonai, let Adonai initiate refulgent dalliance!  Thus I concealed the name of Her name that inspireth my rapture, the scent of whose body bewildereth the soul, the light of whose soul abaseth this body unto the beasts. 44 I have sucked out the blood with my lips; I have drained Her beauty of its sustenance; I have abased Her before me, I have mastered Her, I have possessed Her, and Her life is within me.  In Her blood I inscribe the secret riddles of the Sphinx of the Gods, that none shall understand,—save only the pure and voluptuous, obscene, the androgyne and the gynander that have passed beyond the bars of the prison that the old Slime of Khem set up in the Gates of Amennti. 45 O my adorable, my delicious one, all night will I pour out the libation on Thine altars; all night will I burn the sacrifice of blood; all night will I swing the thurible of my delight before Thee, and the fervour of the orisons shall intoxicate Thy nostrils. 46 O Thou who camest from the land of the Elephant, girt about with the tiger’s pell, and garlanded with the lotus of the spirit, do Thou inebriate my life with Thy madness, that She leap at my passing. 47 Bid Thy maidens who follow Thee bestrew us a bed of flowers immortal, that we may take our pleasure thereupon.  Bid Thy satyrs heap thorns among the flowers, that we may take our pain thereupon.  Let the pleasure and pain be mingled in one supreme offering unto the Lord Adonai! 48 Also I heard the voice of Adonai the Lord the desirable one concerning that which is beyond. 49 Let not the dwellers in Thebai and the temples thereof prate ever of the Pillars of Hercules and the Ocean of the West.  Is not the Nile a beautiful water? 50 Let not the priest of Isis uncover the nakedness of Nuit, for every step is a death and a birth.  The priest of Isis lifted the veil of Isis, and was slain by the kisses of her mouth.  Then was he the priest of Nuit, and drank of the milk of the stars. 51 Let not the failure and the pain turn aside the worshippers.  The foundations of the pyramid were hewn in the living rock ere sunset; did the king weep at dawn that the crown of the pyramid was yet unquarried in the distant land? 52 There was also an humming-bird that spake unto the horned cerastes, and prayed him for poison.  And the great snake of Khem the Holy One, the royal Uræus serpent, answered him and said: 53 I sailed over the sky of Nu in the car called Millions-of-Years, and I saw not any creature upon Seb that was equal to me.  The venom of my fang is the inheritance of my father, and of my father's father; and how shall I give it unto thee?  Live thou and thy children as I and my fathers have lived, even unto an hundred millions of generations, and it may be that the mercy of the Mighty Ones may bestow upon thy children a drop of the poison of eld. 54 Then the humming-bird was afflicted in his spirit, and he flew unto the flowers, and it was as if naught had been spoken between them.  Yet in a little while a serpent struck him that he died. 55 But an Ibis that meditated upon the bank of Nile the beautiful god listened and heard.  And he laid aside his Ibis ways, and became as a serpent, saying Peradventure in an hundred millions of millions of generations of my children, they shall attain to a drop of the poison of the fang of the Exalted One. 56 And behold! ere the moon waxed thrice he became an Uræus serpent, and the poison of the fang was established in him and his seed even for ever and for ever. 57 O thou Serpent Apep, my Lord Adonai, it is a speck of minutest time, this travelling through eternity, and in Thy sight the landmarks are of fair white marble untouched by the tool of the graver.  Therefore Thou art mine, even now and for ever and for everlasting. Amen. 58 Moreover, I heard the voice of Adonai: Seal up the book of the Heart and the Serpent; in the number five and sixty seal thou the holy book. As fine gold that is beaten into a diadem for the fair queen of Pharaoh, as great stones that are cemented together into the Pyramid of the ceremony of the Death of Asar, so do thou bind together the words and the deeds, so that in all is one Thought of Me thy delight Adonai. 59 And I answered and said: It is done even according unto Thy word.  And it was done.  And they that read the book and debated thereon passed into the desolate land of Barren Words.  And they that sealed up the book into their blood were the chosen of Adonai, and the Thought of Adonai was a Word and a Deed; and they abode in the Land that the far-off travellers call Naught. 60 O land beyond honey and spice and all perfection!  I will dwell therein with my Lord for ever. 61 And the Lord Adonai delighteth in me, and I bear the Cup of His gladness unto the weary ones of the old grey land. 62 They that drink thereof are smitten of disease; the abomination hath hold upon them, and their torment is like the thick black smoke of the evil abode. 63 But the chosen ones drank thereof, and became even as my Lord, my beautiful, my desirable one.  There is no wine like unto this wine. 64 They are gathered together into a glowing heart, as Ra that gathereth his clouds about Him at eventide into a molten sea of Joy; and the snake that is the crown of Ra bindeth them about with the golden girdle of the death-kisses. 65 So also is the end of the book, and the Lord Adonai is about it on all sides like a Thunderbolt, and a Pylon, and a Snake, and a Phallus, and in the midst thereof he is like the Woman that jetteth out the milk of the stars from her paps; yea, the milk of the stars from her paps. 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		Liber Stellæ Rubeæ sub figurâ LXVI A secret ritual, the Heart of IAO-OAI, delivered unto V.V.V.V.V. for his use in a certain matter of Liber Legis, and written down under the figure LXVI.  This book is sufficiently described by the title.  Liber CCCXXXIII (The Book of Lies), pp. 34 and 35, and Appendix VI of Magick.  In Crowley's own words from Confessions: "The Book of the Ruby Star describes an extremely powerful ritual of practical Magick; how to arouse the Magical Force within the operator and how to use it to create whatever may be required." 1 Apep deifieth Asar. 2 Let excellent virgins evoke rejoicing, son of Night! 3 This is the book of the most secret cult of the Ruby Star.  It shall be given to none, save to the shameless in deed as in word. 4 No man shall understand this writing—it is too subtle for the sons of men. 5 If the Ruby Star have shed its blood upon thee; if in the season of the moon thou hast invoked by the Iod and the Pe, then mayest thou partake of this most secret sacrament. 6 One shall instruct another, with no care for the matters of men’s thought. 7 There shall be a fair altar in the midst, extended upon a black stone. 8 At the head of the altar gold, and twin images in green of the Master. 9 In the midst a cup of green wine. 10 At the foot the Star of Ruby. 11 The altar shall be entirely bare. 12 First, the ritual of the Flaming Star. 13 Next, the ritual of the Seal. 14 Next, the infernal adorations of OAI.           Mu pa telai,           Tu wa melai           ā, ā, ā.           Tu fu tulu!           Tu fu tulu           Pa, Sa, Ga.           Qwi Mu telai           Ya Pu melai;           ū, ū, ū.           ’Se gu malai;           Pe fu telai,           Fu tu lu.           O chi balae           Wa pa malae:—           Ūt! Ūt! Ūt!           Ge; fu latrai,           Le fu malai           Kūt! Hūt! Nūt!           Al ŌĀĪ           Rel moai           Ti—Ti—Ti!           Wa la pelai           Tu fu latai           Wi, Ni, Bi. 15 Also thou shalt excite the wheels with the five wounds and the five wounds. 16 Then thou shalt excite the wheels with the two and the third in the midst; even ♄ and ♃, ☉ and ☽, ♂ and ♀, and ☿. 17 Then the five—and the sixth. 18 Also the altar shall fume before the master with incense that hath no smoke. 19 That which is to be denied shall be denied; that which is to be trampled shall be trampled; that which is to be spat upon shall be spat upon. 20 These things shall be burnt in the outer fire. 21 Then again the master shall speak as he will soft words, and with music and what else he will bring forward the Victim. 22 Also he shall slay a young child upon the altar, and the blood shall cover the altar with perfume as of roses. 23 Then shall the master appear as He should appear—in His glory. 24 He shall stretch himself upon the altar, and awake it into life, and into death. 25 (For so we conceal that life which is beyond.) 26 The temple shall be darkened, save for the fire and the lamp of the altar. 27 There shall he kindle a great fire and a devouring. 28 Also he shall smite the altar with his scourge, and blood shall flow therefrom. 29 Also he shall have made roses bloom thereon. 30 In the end he shall offer up the Vast Sacrifice, at the moment when the God licks up the flame upon the altar. 31 All these things shalt thou perform strictly, observing the time. 32 And the Beloved shall abide with Thee. 33 Thou shalt not disclose the interior world of this rite unto any one: therefore have I written it in symbols that cannot be understood. 34 I who reveal the ritual am IAO and OAI; the Right and the Averse. 35 These are alike unto me. 36 Now the Veil of this operation is called Shame, and the Glory abideth within. 37 Thou shalt comfort the heart of the secret stone with the warm blood.  Thou shalt make a subtle decoction of delight, and the Watchers shall drink thereof. 38 I, Apep the Serpent, am the heart of IAO.  Isis shall await Asar, and I in the midst. 39 Also the Priestess shall seek another altar, and perform my ceremonies thereon. 40 There shall be no hymn nor dithyramb in my praise and the praise of the rite, seeing that it is utterly beyond. 41 Thou shalt assure thyself of the stability of the altar.