19 Jun 1949 – Explanation of current Magickal work, personal challenges

19 June 49

Care Frater Saturnus

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Thanks for your kind and brotherly wishes for my work. I am very please to hear of your own progress…

At present I have entered magickal regions where there is no possibility of outside help or assistance. The oaths are taken, the bridges burned, and there is no possibility of turning back. I am cognizant of the dangers of my position, but hope that my wide acquaintance with physical and moral dangers in the past and my total dedication to Nuit, will see me through.

In the past three years I have taken a degree and received a license in chemical engineering, acted as safety director for two major aircraft companies, and director of a large research program. During this period I kept up an intense magickal program, recorded in detail.

In September 1948 I was suspended from all my activities on charges which included activity in the O.T.O., and the circulation of Liber Oz. Later my wife left me, and the separation involved the entrapment of most of my friends. During this period I worked as a mechanic, a filling station attendant, and an assistant in a medical hospital, finally obtaining a position on the staff of the University of California. I also finished writing my magickal thesis at this time. Later, in a closed trial, I successfully defended the principles of Liber Oz, the judgement was reversed, and I was cleared of all charges. I am now engaged in building up my chemical practice.

My interest in magick is essentially practical, it is my sole aim to bring Thelema into the working and practical sphere of the world. It has seemed to me that if I had the genius to found the jet propulsion field in the U.S., and found a multimillion dollar corporation and a world renowned research laboratory, then I should also be able to apply this genius in the magical field. The problem then was to determine and overcome the weakness that had thwarted the final fruition of any of my plans.

Constantly invoking my angel, I final (sic) received the advice that would solve the problem. It was this – to put my magical work, and my entire life, on a rigorous scientific basis, with all the detailed planning, step by step progress, isolation of individual phenomena, and limited objectives that go with scientific programming.

I am now engaged in this process. In order for a person with as many wildly variant abilities and defects as myself to understand this matter, and bring it under control, it was necessary first to know my Angel, and second to take the oaths necessary to furnish the impetus for such an impossible task. That has been done. There is no turning back, but ahead there is a long voyage, and a very lonely one. However, essentially it does not matter if it is done in this incarnation or another. I have developed the magical memory sufficiently to know that it is no new thing with me – there have been many trials and errors over a long time, but the Will is known and the end is certain. But your hunch is right – I am strained to my limit, and have no assurance as to the outcome in this life.

That is about all I can say, or will be able to say for some time. If you hear of any of my future experiments, be assured that I am acting in accordance with my true will, dedicated to the practical establishment of Thelema in the world. I have no present alliances, nor do I contemplate any save in a purely ritual sense, for some time. For the time being my magical partners consist of those that can be purchased or otherwise easily picked up and disposed of. I have no further time for serious involvement with anyone who is not in accord with my Will.

A charge you as a brother to regard this entire communication as strictly confidential, and preferably to destroy this letter. I do not want anyone besides yourself to know the details of my present condition or recent history – my time is not yet. I have written you because I sensed your kindly interest as a brother, – because you first initiated me into the most holy and glorious sanctuary of True Magick – so that you might know the reasons for my present state and plans.

My best wishes for your success, and (what is the same thing) for the accomplishment of the holy Law of Thelema, to which we are both dedicated.

Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally

210

22 Jan 1950 –  The Roosevelt – On Gnosticism and Magick

22 Jan [1950]

The Roosevelt, Madison Ave. and 45th St., New York

Dear Candida,

Well, here is where I met you two years ago, and I wish that you were with me now, my dear, so that we could do New York together again.

It has been an interesting trip – I saw Haly of course, and Dan Kimball in Washington, then down to the grim heart of the coal region in Cumberland, then to Princeton, where I spent an afternoon with Martin Summerfield. I will see Hap and Germer, and try to find you a copy of the Goetia while I am here.
There is a Rocket Company starting in Paris, and I have an opening there which I am keeping an eye on if my plans at Hughes do not materialize. I should rather live in Paris, but am on to a big thing here which I had better stay with until it breaks. Is there anything you particularly need or would like for a post Christmas present?

If you are right in your choice of San Miguel as the place for your work, you will undoubtedly find means to complete it there. If not, I should be glad to help you get established there, if it looks like your finances would necessitate some such move.

As a rule no one is sure of his will until he has made a variety of experiments.
One thing about Magick, there is too much claptrap in the present method of presentation, too much indirection. It is all there, but overlaid, like Troy before Schlieman. The modern spirit requires an austere simplicity of approach, a burning passion to truth beyond all partiality and predilection.

Even two thousand years ago that was the reason for the victory of Christianity over gnosticism, because gnosticism, although true, was too complex, and Christianity, although false, was simple and direct. Simplicity has been the key to victory in all the idea wars, and, at present, Magick does not have it. There is the skeleton, in the Rights of Man and in the coverings in the main literature. But the true body has never been shown forth.

The difficulty with the truth is the subtle and pervasive nature of rationalization. Existentialism is just as much on one side as Christianity is on the other, science is as weighted as Shakerism. There can be no objectivity so long as there is preference.

We are not Aristotilean – not brains but fields – consciousness. The inside and the outside must speak, the guts and the blood and the skin; the penis and the vagina, as well as the brain. We must have it all out, the fear and the disgust, the hatred and cowardice, and the beauty, tenderness and courage as well, and balance all.

Then we can get at the truth. The mind is an instrument that measures itself with itself and as such a contradiction – an impossibility. But out of this abyss, as we know, we can make significance, but to be cogent it must be significance for the entire field.

In a world of partialities and pseudo-ideals, the truths on the other side open as horrors and we admit them with a sense of despair, of utter abnegation. But the conflict is real, and the solution cannot be “thought up” as such, it is as obviously ersatz as Esperanto. These continual things that we reach for are just obviously fake, and I must confess that much of Magick seems that way to me.

These “returns,” as though we, of a grown generation could go back to anything, are all off the track – we must go forward to what we are, and no one has ever been there. It’s no use pretending to be adults when you are children, or children when you are adults, and we, unfortunately, do both. The only thing is to find out what you are, and try to be it. Of course, if there is no faith (and there shouldn’t be, if we have thought through) then there must be an act of faith, but this should come after an experiment in truth that comes clean.

Something is moving now – in France, and England, and in Berlin – even moving a little in this benighted country, like the slow, shallow ripple, far out to sea, that hints of a great wave that will flood the land four thousand miles away; and strange as it may be – and brutal and savage as it could be, yet I sense a sort of searching sincerity in it, that has not been known in the world before.

We can sense it, partially predict it, perhaps even guide it a little, and those of us that do may be the makers of a new world. It is all strange and uncharted – nothing but truth will serve us here, and it must be the truth of dream and hallucination and frenzy equally with the truth of science and dialectics and economics. And that truth must be [hounded?] and hunted to its last resting place in the ultimate abyss.

Indeed my personal and interior experience, however hallucinated, must be at least equally valid with the things I have been taught to call “objective” and “real.” But these are also my truths – they are part of me – part of the equipment of my cosmic laboratory wherein I can begin an experiment in truth.

Somewhere I must get interior and personal experience – I am shut off from it and starved for it, as we all are in the West. I can think of no better starting point than “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” – no better equipment than the magical, scientific, and psychological techniques I have inherited. But all these boil down to will, experiment, and honesty in regard to data.

Love, Jack

BASIC MAGICK: FUNDAMENTAL THEORY AND PRACTICE

Basic Magick Fundamental Theory and Practice

Magick is a system of philosophy and a way of life which, as a common denominator of all cultures, is universal to mankind, science, religion, medicine, philosophy, and art have their origin in, and are ultimately transcended by, magick. Magick has sung the cradle song of every race, nurtures its great dreams, insures it furthest flights, and received it again in its return to the dark home of the stars.

Magick is not created by man, it is a part of man, having its basis in the structure of his brain, his body and his nervous system in their relations to his conceptual universe, the matrix of thought, and of speech, the mother of thought. Magick is also the source of the great myths which are the common heritage of the race, moving alike in the creative and initiatory sagas of the great cultures, and in the destructive and abortive nightmares of the terminal stage called modern civilization.

Since magick is a part of man, it moves not only in in every aspect of each race and culture, but in each individual as well; being the source of the deepest dreams and motivation of his unconscious, and by far the largest part of his true self. The study of magick therefor embraces the study of man in his deepest and mist ultimate aspects, and of nature in all her parts.

The experimental animistic basis of magick is a general field theory which regards the individual as network (field) of forces interacting in and directly related to a similar cosmic network (field) which includes the total universe. (From certain viewpoints these two fields are regarded as identical). It is therefore a postulate of magick that ever man and every woman is a star. In magical terminology certain aggregate categories or clusters of forces in a field are termed gods, angels, elementals, or demons. Such terminology may be reasonably applied to a practicality of consciousness (point of view or state of mind), a city, a culture, and era, a star cluster or nebular, providing that proper definition follows.

From this field view naturally follows the law of similarity (homeopathy or sympathy) from which are derived images, talismanic and mantra magick, and the law of bipolarity, which has its physical counterpart in the second law of Newtonian mechanics.

Since each individual is regarded as a potential total universe it is therefore essential that each achieve total consciousness in experience by the expression of his will in all the ways of love. This leads to the second postulate of magick which is “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law,” “Love is the Law, love under will”. It is therefore the function of magick to lead each individual to the realization and expression of his total self on all the planes of being and experience.

These considerations imply subtleties which probably carry us beyond the scope of this section. They are included here in order to indicate to the student something of the enormous scope and reach of the subject and some of the reasons why it is called The Art.

Definitions of Magick

In its absolute basis magick is a passion and a discipline which relates to the mystery of love, and through which man is capable of attaining to any ultimate knowledge and love of himself, his fellow man, and the universe in all its aspects.

In its relative and applied beliefs, which is the root of all secret traditions of mankind, magick relates to the sacrament of sex and to the mastery of the creative will.

Magick has been defined as the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will. This is true if it is postulated that the ultimate object of this change is the attainment of harmony and balance in understanding and love.

Magick has also been defined as the technique of advancement of the individual in light, life, love, and liberty. However, the function of magick is also highly socialized. It is concerned with training exceptional individuals for tribal leadership, of protecting and constructively initiating individuals and groups through the critical periods of infancy, puberty, adolescence and adulthood, and in coping with the various emotional and environmental crises of the individual and the tribe. Magick may therefore be further defined as:

1. A method of stimulating and maintaining creative and life positive forces in the individual and the tribe.
2. A method for dealing with areas of nature and of the human mind which are not amendable to the ordinary logical or mechanistic approach.
3. A concept of nature in all its parts as a living field in direct contact and interaction with each individual.
4. A concept of the individual as a potential field embracing the whole of nature in total consciousness.
5. A way of love that includes all ways of love.

Purpose and Object of Magick

Nothing could be more mistaken than the view that magick is based upon a misapprehension of the nature of the physical world in its relation to the human intellect. As a social equilibrator it is essential that the magician have a comprehensive knowledge of the various planes whose interaction results in comprehensive reality. The primary function of the magician is the understanding and control of the basic forces of life and death as they manifest and change. This it is necessary that the magician be free of the limitation of any particular point of view. He will this understand and utilize the scientific method, but he will also comprehend this as one force in the network of forces which constitute his field of culture.
It may be stated that magick is the method of training individuals towards total consciousness by the stimulation of various centers of the mind and by the cultivation of field thinking. The object of this training is the manifestation of initiated leadership towards a more conscious, better integrated, and more interesting and significant social culture. In short the object of magick is the unfoldment of the individual in all the ways of love; and the enlightenment of society to accept all the commitments of this unfoldment as the necessary conditions of progress.

The Relation of Magick to Man

As the function which equilibrates between the worlds of external perception and internal apprehension, magick stimulates the awareness which brings balance and significance to life, and courage and zest to the ways of love.
Where this function is allowed its fullest scope, civilization as we know it is to a large extent, superfluous. Indeed, in this case, the only function of civilization is to bring variety and refinement to the passionate drama of life. This was to a great degree characteristic of the age of Isis, the enormous sweep of prehistory which characterized the state of mankind for almost a million years, in which the solar-phallic priest-king was considered the harmonious and equilibrated consort of the woman goddess.

The catastrophes which, some 6000 years ago, precipitated the age of Osiris can here only be conjectured. Perhaps they were of an individual and personal nature, resembling the pwers acting on the genius of the Schaka, that unique and terrible warrior king of the Zulus. In any event the rising of patriarchy displaced the rule of the mother goddess to a greater or lesser degree and laid the Oedipean basis of the intellectual and power complexes on which civilization is established. This status remained meta-stable so long as the truly initiated schools of magick, which understood and applied the knowledge of the fundamentally bisexual nature of the forces of life, maintained a guiding, initiatory and advisory capacity in their cultures.

But it is the inherent nature of the unbalanced intellectual and power complexes to demand absolute autonomy, to regard the woman as an enemy, sex as diabolical, and by all and every means to still the capricious, bewildering, bipolar and manifold voices from the centers of life. Thus there was manifested an ever increasing instability in civilization, which could in no wise be restored by any exercise of power or reach of intellect. Thus the early church and state in Europe were infused with magical tradition, which, as it withdrew to the underground regions of popular reaction, left these bodies to the excesses of senility and homicidal mania.

The impact of the virulent patriarchy as expressed in the Judeo-Christian religious-moral system, has impinged on western culture in a wave of triple destruction. First, by expanding the father image into a God monster it has denied each son the possibility of his manhood. Second, by debasing the mother image into a demon-virgin-angel, it has denied each daughter the possibility of her fulfillment. Third, by imputing the concepts of nastiness, dirt, shamefulness, guilt, indecency, and obscenity to the entire sexual process, it has poisoned the life force at its source.

Relation of Magick to the Present

The present age represents the beginning of the age of Horus, the child which contains the elements of both the mother and father, but which is also different in some respects from either.

Modern man, in half conscious reaction against the patriarch and the Judeo-Christian religion, seeks an escape to the mother in materialism and science, but these cannot really help him, since he is unable to face or understand their origins. On the other hand, the fear and hatred of the demon mother results in increasing components of homosexuality and its repressive corollary, the paranoid psychosis. The partialities in man fear nothing more than a move towards totality. Consequently, in secondary reaction we observe fanatic militarism, pseudo morality and dogmatic politics in their most violent aspects.
Feeling himself unloved and unknowing of the ways of love, Western man moves in a sterile waste land of the mind, lacking the knowledge, understanding and will to save himself by and act of love, unbalanced, frustrated, denied the expression of his nature, he reacts in frenzied fear and hatred which tend to be ever more suicidal. To this terrible impasse no real individual or social solution has been found, nor will be found until the magical equilibrium is rediscovered and reformulated by the culture heroes who will found a new magical religion of love, and this initiate the new age into maturity.

Object of the Course and Relation of Magick to the Student

It is an object of this course to develop an understanding of magick which will be individually and socially useful, instructive, and entertaining, and which will lead the student to the ultimate self-initiation of which he is capable. It is a further object to assist in the development of a number of self-aware magical personalities of a passion and intensity sufficient for the role of initiators of the new age.

It is thus our hope that this course will assist the student in attaining the knowledge, permission, and power of his total self, and in particular that power of love whereby he may become a master of the illusion of opposites, and a star and a light in this the great darkness of our age.

DOING YOUR WILL

DOING YOUR WILL_

DOING YOUR WILL, by Jack Parsons - An Audio Reading

I

Tonight I will attempt to present you with the outline of a practical reduction of the philosophy behind The Book of the Law, as it applies to our modern life.
This will be difficult, since there is an enormous background of technical, historical, social, and psychological data which I shall be forced to omit. This is all available. I hope that you will be sufficiently interested to review it yourself, if you have not done so.

If you will remember that I am dealing with the end product of this material, and trying, in a very short period, to condense this into a practical conclusion, I will appreciate your tolerance.

There are certain individuals who aspire to a maximum of independence, in thought and in action, in order to achieve the optimum in the function of their nature and in their creative Will.

From among such have come the dreamers and creators, the leaders and revolutionaries, artists and poets and scientists. All that we know of progress and of culture has come from them; all, out of the Neolithic swamp, by fire and air, by earth and water, and by the creative word, has come from those minds, from those hands.

The anthropoid mind fears and mistrusts such sorts, and rides, an unwilling ape, on the coat-tails of the creative evolute. Unwilling, unwitting, and often something more than that.

In the indomitable Will of the first order genius, there is sufficient ferocity or subtlety to overcome arboreal opposition, although the manifest result is usually post mortem, over a somewhat mutilated corpse.

But there are numberless fine minds – men and women of high talent and culture – who, lacking a little in the internal certainty, or facing and overwhelming social opposition, have descended into futility and failure.
We propose a philosophy and a way of life having a pragmatic appeal to such minds.

A vast number of the human race has the mentality of slaves. Following Barnum, we can also deduce an appropriate number of slave masters.
There is no criticism here. The orders of nature are obvious, and acceptable to the philosophic. But, to the slave mind, there is often something unendurable in the notion of freedom and independence; it would have all men as its brothers in bondage. With this, the slave masters are in full accord.

It would be tedious to examine the techniques by which slavery has been fostered; the superstitious and authoritative devices, religious, political, social and economic, which have forged the chains. Whole philosophies, conceiving the Universe of nature as sorrow, and the nature of man as sin, have been constructed to palliate sacrifice, expiation and obedience.

God and Pope and king, society, humanity, the people, the proletariat, the family, war, the national emergency and all the other bogeys from the armory of fear have been summoned to confront the non-groveler. And those psychological weapons have been terribly enhanced.

This is obvious; and there is room in the world for animal acts and animal trainers – but not more than enough room!
If the individual abdicates his independence in the face of this rabbit hypnosis, this prestidigitation, then he has deserved the bondage into which he is delivered.

It is a matter of balance. The leopard won’t change his spots – not very rapidly – nor is it needful that he should. It is only needful that the lion take his proper place in the jungle, and keep the leopard and the rabbit where they belong.
The creative individual must take his place as a creative leader in society. He must fulfill his destiny and his responsibility; he can achieve both in fearlessly following his creative Will – his own inner truth; and, in inevitable corollary, he must know and assist others who strive to do likewise.

Then, by leading the slaves a little out of slavery, and the masters a little into humanity and culture – maintaining all the while his own inviolable independence – he will achieve that balance which alone gives significance to the human story.

II

This exposition of the Rights of Man is a statement of first principles. You are referred to Crowley’s works, the writings of Nietzche, Mencken and Bertrand Russell, Emerson’s essay on Self-Reliance, and the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights in the American Constitution. Here I am not unduly concerned with theory, but rather with you, who, like myself, have independently reached these conclusions, and who are interested in a practical reduction.

Freedom is twofold: there is the freedom within, and the freedom without; and, like all things, the first freedom starts at the home plate.
The mainspring of the individual is his creative Will. This Will is the sum of his tendencies, his destiny, his inner truth. It is the one with the force that makes the birds since and flowers bloom; as inevitable as gravity, as implicit as a bowel movement, it informs alike atoms and men and suns.
To the man who knows this Will, there is no why or why not, no can or cannot; he IS!

There is no known force that can turn an apple into an alley cat; there is no known force that can turn a man from his will. This is the triumph of genius; that, surviving the centuries, enlightens the world.

This force burns in every man.
There are those who are too cowardly, too weak, to see or express it.
There are those who are too full of pretense, of gullibility, of fear and greed, to give it utterance.

Their lot is bitterness, failure and frustration; dust and ashes are their portion.
There are those who are bewildered, at odds with themselves, overwhelmed by adversity. They seek the light, and if they persevere, they will find it – within Themselves.

LIBER LXXVII

 

 

 

 

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” –AL. I. 40

“thou hast no right but to do thy will. Do that, and no other shall say nay.” –AL. I. 42-3

“Every man and every woman is a star.” –AL. I. 3

There is no god but man.

1. Man has the right to live by his own law–

to live in the way that he wills to do:
to work as he will:
to play as he will:
to rest as he will:
to die when and how he will.

2. Man has the right to eat what he will:

to drink what he will:
to dwell where he will:
to move as he will on the face of the earth.

3. Man has the right to think what he will:

to speak what he will:
to write what he will:
to draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build as he will:
to dress as he will.

4. Man has the right to love as he will:–

“take your fill and will of love as ye will,
when, where, and with whom ye will.” –AL. I. 51

5. Man has the right to kill those who would thwart these rights.

“the slaves shall serve.” –AL. II. 58

“Love is the law, love under will.” –AL. I. 57

 

 

 

III

What are the obstacles to the attainment of the Will? There are many, but they may be grouped into certain primary divisions. And the name of every one of them is FEAR.

1. Fear of Incompetence

“I would like to, but I could never do it.”

This is the flimsiest of excuses; – a narcissistic pap poisoning creation at its source. Confidence, enthusiasm, belief and egotism are the roots of creation.

BELIEVE IN YOURSELF

That is the first rule. Humility can come later. Applaud yourself to yourself. Be proud – you are unique, and marvelously made. There is none other like you.

2. Fear the Opinion of Others

“What would people say?”

What people? What would they say? To hell with them. Every genius that lighted the world has outraged public opinion. Do you fear that pack of cards?

BE YOURSELF

Be true to yourself; be honest; enjoy yourself; go your own way, the way of the stars.

3. Fear of Hurting Others

“Mother wouldn’t want me to — !”

Are you yourself or another? Whose life do you live? To whom are you responsible? Who is your master? Shall we ban cigarettes because they make Mrs. Grundy cough, hand lumber dealers because Christ was crucified, and rend Edison because Johnny was electrocuted?
Does it kill mother when you stay out until one? Is hubby so dreadfully hurt over that flirtation, and wifey in tears about the blonde? This is a subtle device of the slave master. “Do what I say or I’ll feel badly.”

EXPRESS YOURSELF

Live your own life – follow your own star. As the Bible has it: “Forsake your father and mother.” “Let the dead bury the dead.” Let the sick tend the sick. But follow yourself, and no other christ or god. You are sufficient; you justify yourself; you are your own reason:

THERE IS NO MORE NEEDED.

You should be polite about it; you may even be gentle about it. Wanton hurt is needless and gains nothing; but inner, inflexible strength, terribly gentle in its own right of expression, can and must follow its own Will as surely as a star follows it own orbit, undeterred and undisturbed by the wailing of inhabitants of minor satellites.

4. Fear of Insecurity

“I might lose my job”

This is the most paltry, the most despicable of the excuses – this slavish whine for daily bread: “Anything you say, masters. I’ll be good, just feed me!”

HAVE FORTITUDE.

Be courageous, and the adventure of Life is yours. Failure – can there be an ultimate failure where manhood is sustained? Is not any failure in freedom better than any success in the Slave Pen?
“Yes,” you might agree – at least I assume that somebody might agree – “but these things are difficult. Where do we start?”

We start, naturally, with the least of the little things. For on the other end of the fulcrum from that little thing is the Universe, and all your heart’s desire. Dedicate yourself to your best and highest, and begin. What is the person you most desire to be – I mean, freely and honestly, not morally? Imitate that person, and what began as imitation will end as perfection.

It is possible to cultivate habits of mind and of attention. The splendor of nature is all about us, immortal in loveliness, inexhaustible in wonder. The sky calls us to the high places; the wind and the rain greet us; trees and grasses speak to us, mountains and the great plains and green valleys. We have only to open our minds and hearts to the eternal forces, and we and the eternal forces are one.

From such harmonies the creative Will draws force to inform the mind. He who has opened the way to nature will not wait long to know his Way.
In the beginning, and consistent action dedicated to the discovery of the Will, or to its development, suffices. The nature of an act is no wise important, so long as it serves as a lever to set the Will in motion, and so long as it is repeated performed.

Almost any device is permissible if it helps. The use of a talisman, fetish or image symbolizing the Will; the use of a daily formula or ritual; and most especially the dedication of a certain period every day – rain or shine, in sickness and in health, in enthusiasm or loathing – for the exclusive practice of the dedicatory act. There is a danger mind or muscle – building as an end in itself can degenerate into a subtle form of masturbation.

The Will must be freed of its fetters. The ruthless examination and destruction of taboos, complexes, frustrations, dislikes, fears and disgusts hostile to the Will is essential to progress. Even in the case of per preferences and prejudices, it must be realized that those things are only significant to the individual; meaningless and often silly in the larger world. On a hot day, Galahad probably stank under his armor. And the sensibility which is nauseated by the sex odor of its own kind, and titillated by the sex odor of plants, might be profitably studied under the heading of a perversion.
Now suppose that the second step is reached. The Will is beginning to flow. You know who you are, what you are, you have discovered your destiny.
It is a time for rejoicing, but not for relaxation. There is no reason in nature why you cannot write music beyond Beethoven, poetry beyond Shelley, out-invent Edison, or out-theorize Einstein!

They are beacons, lighting a sky which you, in your own time and in your own way, will one day illumine.

The task is just begun. There is work ahead – years of work – but work in the real world. Woe to him who dallies with escapist daydreams, with fancies and visions and trances, with specious words and poses, and the onanistic flattery of his fellow opium eaters.

The will is creative and dynamic, and it must create and move in hard fact. By their fruits shall ye known them. “Success is your proof” – but YOUR success, on your own terms. The way is hard; you will face failure after failure, fall after fall. But each fall and each failure is a success, a new jewel for the diadem of conscious experience.

Life – beautiful , terrible, splendid and pitiless; life is your adversary and your love. She you must accept unreservedly, and she you must overcome. She woos to destroy; she submits to conquer, she conquers to submit. That Tigress is your paramour; the Cosmos is your adventure.

And the goal? The totality of experience – the gesture commensurate with the Universe.

Is that not enough?

ANALYSIS BY A MASTER OF THE TEMPLE

Click Here to Download PDF: Aanalysis By A Master Of The Temple

of the Critical Nodes
in the Experience of
his Material Vehicle

“I shall regard all phenomena as the particular dealing of God with my soul.”

Birth

Oct. 2, 1914, Los Angeles, in , rising in midheaven, in favorable conjunc., at apehelion. I chose this constellation in order that you might have an innate sense of balance and ultimate justice, responsive and attractive nature, a bountiful environment and sense of royalty and largesse, strength, courage and power combined with cunning and intelligence. Saturn was bound in order that you might easily formulate a lower will which would have satisfied and overwhelmed you with its spectacular success.
Your father separated from your mother in order that you might grow up with a hatred of authority and a spirit of revolution necessary to my work. The Oedipus complex was needed to formulate the love of witchcraft which would lead you into magick, with the influence of your grandfather active to prevent too complete an identification with your mother.

Childhood

Your isolation as a child developed the necessary background of literature and scholarship; and the unfortunate experiences with other children the requisite contempt for the crowd and for the group mores. You will note that these factors developed the needful hatred for christianity (without implanting a christian guilt sense) at an extremely early age.

Adolescence

Early adolescence continued the development of the necessary combinations. The awakening interest in chemistry and science prepared the counterbalance for the coming magical awakening, the means of obtaining prestige and livelihood in the formative period, and the scientific method necessary for my manifestation.
The magical fiasco at the age of 16 was needful to keep you away from magick until you were sufficiently matured.

Youth

The loss of family fortune developed your sense of self reliance at a critical period, the contact with reality at this time was essential. Your early marriage with Helen served to break your family ties and effect a transference to her, away from a dangerous attachment to your mother. The experience at Halifax and Cal Tech served to strengthen your self reliance, scientific method and material powers. The influence of Tom Rose at this period, as that of Ed. Forman in adolescence, was essential in developing the male center.

Later Youth

The house on Terrace Drive, Music, Lynn, Curtis, and Gloria, and the increasing restlessness were, of course, all preparations for the meeting with A A and O.T.O. The alternate repulsion and attraction you felt the first year after meeting Fra. 132 were caused by a subconscious resistance against the ordeals ahead.
Had you had these experiences before, without such resistance, you would have become hopelessly unbalanced. Betty served to effect a transference from Helen at a critical period. Had this not occurred your repressed homosexual component could have caused a serious disorder.

Your passion for Betty also gave you the magical force needed at the time, and the act of adultery tinged with incest, served as your magical confirmation in the Law of Thelema.

At this time the O.T.O. was an excellent training school for adepts, but hardly an appropriate Order for the manifestation of Thelema. Therefore, in spite of your motto you were not able to formulate your Will. The experience with the O.T.O. and Aerijet were needed to dispel your romanticism, self-deception, and reliance on others. Betty was one link in the process designed to tear you away from the now unneeded Oedipus complex, the overvaluation of women and romantic love. Since this was unconscious, the next step was to bring it into consciousness, and there to destroy it.

Early Maturity

The final experience with Hubbard and Betty, and the O.T.O. was necessary to overcome your false and infantile reliance on others, although this was only partially accomplished at the time. The invocation of Babalon served to exteriorize the Oedipus complex; at the same time, because of the forces involved it produced extraordinary magical effects. However, this operation is accomplished and closed–you should have nothing more to do with it–nor even think of it, until Her manifestation is revealed, and proved beyond the shadow of a doubt. Even then, you must be circumspect–although I hope to take complete charge before then.

Candy appeared in answer to your call, in order to wean you from wet nursing. She has demonstrated the nature of woman to you in such unequivocal terms that you should have no further room for illusion on the subject.

The suspension and inquisition was my opportunity–one of the final links in the chain. At this time you were enabled to pre- pare your thesis, formulate your Will, and take the Oath of the Abyss, thus making it possible (although only partially) to manifest. The exit of Candy prepares for the final stage of your initial preparation.

Conclusions

The numerous rituals you have performed have resulted in a well developed body of light. The ordeals have purged most of the emotional and mental garbage–your only real dangers are, and have ever been, sentimentality, weakness, and procrastination.

It is interesting to note that the first weapon you formulated was the Lamp of the Spirit, in the invocation to Pan (although the Sword was prefigured). Next the Sword in the Horus ritual, as was appropriate to your intellectual development at that time.

Then the Cup out of the wine of your emotional life–the disk out of material failure. The Sword remains to be manifested.

You will note that it has been impossible to truly formulate your Will with any of these weapons–naturally–that is only possible with the wand. On the other hand, if you had done so previously, you would have been unbalanced by the lack of initiated preparation. It is a right and natural procedure; the True Will cannot be truly formulated until you are initiate in all the other planes, and it is well to make no pretense of doing so. Until that point all you can known of the true will is the aspiration to the next step–towards further experience. That is the glory of the Law of Thelema–DO!

The physical and emotional stresses you feel at present are a result of the pull of the Abyss–your present poetry is indicative. Naturally you find no power in any spell, no comfort in any ritual, no hope in any action. You are cut off by your own oath. Nor can I or any other aid you at this time. There is only manhood, only will, only the vector of your own tendencies, developed through the aeons of the past. I do not say how long the state will last, or what the outcome may be.
However, I can formulate some rules which may serve to guide you.

Instructions

A. Works of the Wand–of the Will alone avail in this state. No other weapon should be used, no other ritual save the hymn to the Unnamed One in the Anthem of the Mass.

B. You should be meticulous in all observations pertaining to the Will, even the most petty. Fulfill all obligations and promises, undertake nothing which you cannot fulfill, be prompt in the discharge of each responsibility.

C. Be neat in your personal and domestic habits, indicate your self respect to yourself.

D. Do not become unduly involved with any person, and practice all your hard-earned wisdom in your relations with women.

E. Set up your personal affairs in business order. Keep your accounts current and your papers neatly filed.

F. Finish your poetry for publication. Finish the synthesis of the Tarot and start work on the preparation of the lessons of class instruction from your book.

G. Pay no attention to any phenomena whatsoever, and continue in a sober and responsible way of life under all circumstances.

Not magical! For you nothing is more magical. Only thus can the curse of Saturn be overcome. I see you hate this way. But it is an ultimate time–it is you that have taken the oath. The choice is me or Choronzon.

I await you in the City of the Pyramids.

Belarion 8 = 3