The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram

“Those who regard this ritual as a mere device to invoke or banish spirits are unworthy to possess it. Properly understood, it is the Medicine of metals and the Stone of the Wise.”
- Aleister Crowley

Reprinted from the description of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram from Liber O, a publication of the occult order A.'.A.'.


I.    Touching the forehead, say "Ateh (Unto Thee)."
II.   Touching the breast, say Malkuth (The Kingdom)."
III.  Touching the right shoulder, say "ve-Geburah (and the Power)."
IV.   Touching the left shoulder, say "ve-Gedulah (and the Glory),
V.    Clasping the hands upon the breast, say "le-Olahm, Amen (To the Ages, Amen)."
VI.   Turning to the East, make a pentagram (that of Earth) with the proper weapon (usually the Wand). Say (i.e. vibrate) "IHVH" (Ye-ho-wau).
VII.  Turning to the South, the same, but say "ADNI" (Adonai).
VIII. Turning to the West, the same, but say "AHIH" (Eheieh).
IX.   Turning to the North, the same, but say "AGLA" (Agla).
X.    Extending the arms in the form of a cross say:
XI.   "Before me Raphael;
XII.  Behind me Gabriel;
XIII. On my right hand Michael;
XIV.  On my left hand Auriel;
XV.   For about me flames the Pentagram,
XVI.  And in the Column stands the six-rayed Star."
XVII. Repeat steps (i) to (v), the "Qabalistic Cross."

Liber AL Vel Legis (Chapter One)

1. Had! The manifestation of Nuit.

2. The unveiling of the company of heaven.

3. Every man and every woman is a star.

4. Every number is infinite; there is no difference.

5. Help me, o warrior lord of Thebes, in my unveiling before the Children of men!

6. Be thou Hadit, my secret centre, my heart & my tongue!

7. Behold! it is revealed by Aiwass the minister of Hoor-paar-kraat.

8. The Khabs is in the Khu, not the Khu in the Khabs.

9. Worship then the Khabs, and behold my light shed over you!

10. Let my servants be few & secret: they shall rule the many & the known.

11. These are fools that men adore; both their Gods & their men are fools.

12. Come forth, o children, under the stars, & take your fill of love!

13. I am above you and in you. My ecstasy is in yours. My joy is to see your joy.

14. Above, the gemmed azure is
The naked splendour of Nuit;
She bends in ecstasy to kiss
The secret ardours of Hadit.
The winged globe, the starry blue,
Are mine, O Ankh-af-na-khonsu!

15. Now ye shall know that the chosen priest & apostle of infinite space is the prince-priest the Beast; and in his woman called the Scarlet Woman is all power given. They shall gather my children into their fold: they shall bring the glory of the stars into the hearts of men.

16. For he is ever a sun, and she a moon. But to him is the winged secret flame, and to her the stooping starlight.

17. But ye are not so chosen.

18. Burn upon their brows, o splendrous serpent!

19. O azure-lidded woman, bend upon them!

20. The key of the rituals is in the secret word which I have given unto him.

21. With the God & the Adorer I am nothing: they do not see me. They are as upon the earth; I am Heaven, and there is no other God than me, and my lord Hadit.

22. Now, therefore, I am known to ye by my name Nuit, and to him by a secret name which I will give him when at last he knoweth me. Since I am Infinite Space, and the Infinite Stars thereof, do ye also thus. Bind nothing! Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing & any other thing; for thereby there cometh hurt.

23. But whoso availeth in this, let him be the chief of all!

24. I am Nuit, and my word is six and fifty.

25. Divide, add, multiply, and understand.

26. Then saith the prophet and slave of the beauteous one: Who am I, and what shall be the sign? So she answered him, bendingdown, a lambent flame of blue, all-touching, all penetrant, her lovely hands upon the black earth, & her lithe body arched for love, and her soft feet not hurting the little flowers: Thou knowest! And the sign shall be my ecstasy, the consciousness of the continuity of existence, the omnipresence of my body.

27. Then the priest answered & said unto the Queen of Space, kissing her lovely brows, and the dew of her light bathing his whole body in a sweet-smelling perfume of sweat: O Nuit, continuous one of Heaven, let it be ever thus; that men speak not of Thee as One but as None; and let them speak not of thee at all, since thou art continuous!

28. None, breathed the light, faint & faery, of the stars, and two.

29. For I am divided for love's sake, for the chance of union.

30. This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all.

31. For these fools of men and their woes care not thou at all! They feel little; what is, is balanced by weak joys; but ye are my chosen ones.

32. Obey my prophet! follow out the ordeals of my knowledge! seek me only! Then the joys of my love will redeem ye from all pain. This is so: I swear it by the vault of my body; by my sacred heart and tongue; by all I can give, by all I desire of ye all.

33. Then the priest fell into a deep trance or swoon, & said unto the Queen of Heaven; Write unto us the ordeals; write unto us the rituals; write unto us the law!

34. But she said: the ordeals I write not: the rituals shall be half known and half concealed: the Law is for all.

35. This that thou writest is the threefold book of Law.

36. My scribe Ankh-af-na-khonsu, the priest of the princes, shall not in one letter change this book; but lest there be folly, he shall comment thereupon by the wisdom of Ra-Hoor-Khuit.

37. Also the mantras and spells; the obeah and the wanga; the work of the wand and the work of the sword; these he shall learn and teach.

38. He must teach; but he may make severe the ordeals.

39. The word of the Law is THELEMA.

40. Who calls us Thelemites will do no wrong, if he look but close into the word. For there are therein Three Grades, the Hermit, and the Lover, and the man of Earth. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

41. The word of Sin is Restriction. O man! refuse not thy wife, if she will! O lover, if thou wilt, depart! There is no bond that can unite the divided but love: all else is a curse. Accursed! Accursed be it to the aeons! Hell.

42. Let it be that state of manyhood bound and loathing. So with thy all; thou hast no right but to do thy will.

43. Do that, and no other shall say nay.

44. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.

45. The Perfect and the Perfect are one Perfect and not two; nay, are none!

46. Nothing is a secret key of this law. Sixty-one the Jews call it; I call it eight, eighty, four hundred & eighteen.

47. But they have the half: unite by thine art so that all disappear.

48. My prophet is a fool with his one, one, one; are not they the Ox, and none by the Book?

49. Abrogate are all rituals, all ordeals, all words and signs. Ra-Hoor-Khuit hath taken his seat in the East at the Equinox of the Gods; and let Asar be with Isa, who also are one. But they are not of me. Let Asar be the adorant, Isa the sufferer; Hoor in his secret name and splendour is the Lord initiating.

50. There is a word to say about the Hierophantic task. Behold! there are three ordeals in one, and it may be given in three ways. The gross must pass through fire; let the fine be tried in intellect, and the lofty chosen ones in the highest. Thus ye have star & star, system & system; let not one know well the other!

51. There are four gates to one palace; the floor of that palace is of silver and gold; lapis lazuli & jasper are there; and all rare scents; jasmine & rose, and the emblems of death. Let him enter in turn or at once the four gates; let him stand on the floor of the palace. Will he not sink? Amn. Ho! warrior, if thy servant sink? But there are means and means. Be goodly therefore: dress ye all in fine apparel; eat rich foods and drink sweet wines and wines that foam! Also, take your fill and will of love as ye will, when, where and with whom ye will! But always unto me.

52. If this be not aright; if ye confound the space-marks, saying: They are one; or saying, They are many; if the ritual be not ever unto me: then expect the direful judgments of Ra Hoor Khuit!

53. This shall regenerate the world, the little world my sister, my heart & my tongue, unto whom I send this kiss. Also, o scribe and prophet, though thou be of the princes, it shall not assuage thee nor absolve thee. But ecstasy be thine and joy of earth: ever To me! To me!

54. Change not as much as the style of a letter; for behold! thou, o prophet, shalt not behold all these mysteries hidden therein.

55. The child of thy bowels, he shall behold them.

56. Expect him not from the East, nor from the West; for from no expected house cometh that child. Aum! All words are sacred and all prophets true; save only that they understand a little; solve the first half of the equation, leave the second unattacked. But thou hast all in the clear light, and some, though not all, in the dark.

57. Invoke me under my stars! Love is the law, love under will. Nor let the fools mistake love; for there are love and love. There is the dove, and there is the serpent. Choose ye well! He, my prophet, hath chosen, knowing the law of the fortress, and the great mystery of the House of God.

All these old letters of my Book are aright; but [Tzaddi] is not the Star. This also is secret: my prophet shall reveal it to the wise.

58. I give unimaginable joys on earth: certainty, not faith, while in life, upon death; peace unutterable, rest, ecstasy; nor do I demand aught in sacrifice.

59. My incense is of resinous woods & gums; and there is no blood therein: because of my hair the trees of Eternity.

60. My number is 11, as all their numbers who are of us. The Five Pointed Star, with a Circle in the Middle, & the circle is Red. My colour is black to the blind, but the blue & gold are seen of the seeing. Also I have asecret glory for them that love me.

61. But to love me is better than all things: if under the night stars in the desert thou presently burnest mine incense before me, invoking me with a pure heart, and the Serpent flame therein, thou shalt come a little to lie in my bosom. For one kiss wilt thou then be willing to give all; but whoso gives one particle of dust shall lose all in that hour. Ye shall gather goods and store of women and spices; ye shall wear rich jewels; ye shall exceed the nations of the earth in spendour & pride; but always in the love of me, and so shall ye come to my joy. I charge you earnestly to come before me in a single robe, and covered with a rich headdress. I love you! I yearn to you! Pale or purple, veiled or voluptuous, I who am all pleasure and purple, and drunkenness of the innermost sense, desire you. Put on the wings, and arouse the coiled splendour within you: come unto me!

62. At all my meetings with you shall the priestess say -- and her eyes shall burn with desire as she stands bare and rejoicing in my secret temple -- To me! To me! calling forth the flame of the hearts of all in her love-chant.

63. Sing the rapturous love-song unto me! Burn to me perfumes! Wear to me jewels! Drink to me, for I love you! I love you!

64. I am the blue-lidded daughter of Sunset; I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky.

65. To me! To me!

66. The Manifestation of Nuit is at an end.

Liber Porta Lucis sub figurâ X

A∴A∴

Publication in Class A.

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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. We shall bring you to Absolute Truth, Absolute Light, Absolute Bliss.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Nevertheless, as a fire cannot be started with iron alone, in the beginning one system may be suited for one seeker, another for another.
8. 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.

Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli Adymbratio Kabbalae Aegyptiorum sub figurâ VII

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, alway. 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 My 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. 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. Ohe! 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 which 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 cates 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 aeon; 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.

Liber B vel Magi sub figurâ I

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.

Liber VIII - The Ritual Proper For The Invocation Of Augoeides

                                                    Liber VIII
                              A∴ A∴ Publication in Class D

And thus shall he do who will attain unto the mystery of the knowledge and conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel:

First, let him prepare a chamber, of which the walls and the roof shall be white, and the floor shall be covered with a carpet of black squares and white, and the border thereof shall be blue and gold.

And if it be in a town, the room shall have no window, and if it be in the country, then it is better if the window be in the roof. Or, if it be possible, let this invocation be performed in a temple prepared for the ritual of passing through the Tuat.

From the roof he shall hang a lamp, wherein is a red glass, to burn olive oil. And this lamp shall he cleanse and make ready after the prayer of sunset, and beneath the lamp shall be an altar, foursquare, & the height shall be thrice half of the breadth or double the breadth.

And upon the altar shall be a censor, hemispherical, supported upon three legs, of silver, and within it an hemisphere of copper, and upon the top a grating of gilded silver, and thereupon shall he burn incense made of four parts of olibanum and two parts of stacte, and one part of lignum aloes, or of cedar, or of sandal. And this is enough.

And he shall also keep ready in a flask of crystal within the altar, holy anointing oil made of myrrh and cinnamon and galangal.

And even if he be of higher rank than a Probationer, he shall yet wear the robe of the Probationer, for the star of flame showeth forth Ra Hoor Khuit openly upon the breast, and secretly the blue triangle that descendeth is Nuit, and the red triangle that ascendeth is Hadit. And I am the golden Tau in the midst of their marriage. Also, if he choose, he may instead wear a close-fitting robe of shot silk, purple and green, and upon it a cloak without sleeves, of bright blue, covered with golden sequins, and scarlet within.

And he shall make himself a wand of almond wood or of hazel cut by his own hands at dawn at the Equinox, or at the Solstice, or on the day of Corpus Christi, or on one of the feast-days that are appointed in "The Book of the Law".

And he shall engrave with his own hand upon the plate of gold the Holy Sevenfold Table, or the Holy Twelvefold Table, or some particular device. And it shall be foursquare within a circle, and the circle shall be winged, and he shall attach it about his forehead by a ribbon of blue silk.

Moreover, he shall wear a fillet of laurel or rose or ivy or rue, and every day, after the prayer of sunrise, he shall burn it in the fire of the censor.

Now he shall pray thrice daily, about sunset, and at midnight, and at sunrise. And if he be able, he shall pray also four times between sunrise and sunset.

The prayer shall last for the space of an hour, at the least, and he shall seek ever to extend it, and to inflame himself in praying. Thus shall he invoke his Holy Guardian Angel for eleven weeks, and in any case he shall pray seven times daily during the last week of the eleven weeks.

And during all this time he shall have composed an invocation suitable, with such wisdom and understanding as may be given him from the Crown, and this shall he write in letters of gold upon the top of the altar.

For the top of the altar shall be of white wood, well polished, and in the centre thereof he shall have placed a triangle of oak-wood, painted with scarlet, and upon this triangle the three legs of the censor shall stand.

Moreover, he shall copy his invocation upon a sheet of pure white vellum, with Indian ink, and he shall illuminate it according to his fancy and imagination, that shall be informed by beauty.

And on the first day of the twelfth week he shall enter the chamber at sunrise, and he shall make his prayer, having first burnt the conjuration that he had made upon the vellum in the fire of the lamp.

Then, at his prayer, shall the chamber be filled with light insufferable for splendour, and a perfume intolerable for sweetness. And his Holy Guardian Angel shall appear unto him, yea, his Holy Guardian Angel shall appear unto him, so that he shall be wrapt away into the Mystery of Holiness.

All that day shall he remain in the enjoyment of the knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.

And for three days after he shall remain from sunrise unto sunset in the temple, and he shall obey the counsel that his Angel shall have given unto him, and he shall suffer those things that are appointed.

And for ten days thereafter shall he withdraw himself as shall have been taught unto him from the fullness of that communion, for he must harmonize the world that is within with the world that is without.

And at the end of the ninety-one days he shall return into the world, and there shall he perform that work to which the Angel shall have appointed him.

And more than this it is not necessary to say, for his Angel shall have entreated him kindly, and showed him in what manner he may be most perfectly involved. And unto him that hath this Master there is nothing else that he needeth, so long as he continue in the knowledge and conversation of the Angel, so that he shall come at last into the City of the Pyramids.

Liber CCXXXI

Liber AL Vel Legis (Chapter Three)

Chapter III

1. Abrahadabra; the reward of Ra Hoor Khut.

2. There is division hither homeward; there is a word not known. Spelling is defunct; all is not aught. Beware! Hold! Raise the spell of Ra-Hoor-Khuit!

3. Now let it be first understood that I am a god of War and of Vengeance. I shall deal hardly with them.

4. Choose ye an island!

5. Fortify it!

6. Dung it about with enginery of war!

7. I will give you a war-engine.

8. With it ye shall smite the peoples; and none shall stand before you.

9. Lurk! Withdraw! Upon them! this is the Law of the Battle of Conquest: thus shall my worship be about my secret house.

10. Get the stele of revealing itself; set it in thy secret temple -- and that temple is already aright disposed -- & it shall be your Kiblah for ever. It shall not fade, but miraculous colour shall come back to it day after day. Close it in locked glass for a proof to the world.

11. This shall be your only proof. I forbid argument. Conquer! That is enough. I will make easy to you the abstruction from the ill-ordered house in the Victorious City. Thou shalt thyself convey it with worship, o prophet, though thou likest it not. Thou shalt have danger & trouble. Ra-Hoor-Khu is with thee. Worship me with fire & blood; worship me with swords & with spears. Let the woman be girt with a sword before me: let blood flow to my name. Trample down the Heathen; be upon them, o warrior, I will give you of their flesh to eat!

12. Sacrifice cattle, little and big: after a child.

13. But not now.

14. Ye shall see that hour, o blessed Beast, and thou the Scarlet Concubine of his desire!

15. Ye shall be sad thereof.

16. Deem not too eagerly to catch the promises; fear not to undergo the curses. Ye, even ye, know not this meaning all.

17. Fear not at all; fear neither men nor Fates, nor gods, nor anything. Money fear not, nor laughter of the folk folly, nor any other power in heaven or upon the earth or under the earth. Nu is your refuge as Hadit your light; and I am the strength, force, vigour, of your arms.

18. Mercy let be off; damn them who pity! Kill and torture; spare not; be upon them!

19. That stele they shall call the Abomination of Desolation; count well its name, & it shall be to you as 718.

20. Why? Because of the fall of Because, that he is not there again.

21. Set up my image in the East: thou shalt buy thee an image which I will show thee, especial, not unlike the one thou knowest. And it shall be suddenly easy for thee to do this.

22. The other images group around me to support me: let all be worshipped, for they shall cluster to exalt me. I am the visible object of worship; the others are secret; for the Beast & his Bride are they: and for the winners of the Ordeal x. What is this? Thou shalt know.

23. For perfume mix meal & honey & thick leavings of red wine: then oil of Abramelin and olive oil, and afterward soften & smooth down with rich fresh blood.

24. The best blood is of the moon, monthly: then the fresh blood of a child, or dropping from the host of heaven: then of enemies; then of the priest or of the worshippers: last of some beast, no matter what.

25. This burn: of this make cakes & eat unto me. This hath also another use; let it be laid before me, and kept thick with perfumes of your orison: it shall become full of beetles as it were and creeping things sacred unto me.

26. These slay, naming your enemies; & they shall fall before you.

27. Also these shall breed lust & power of lust in you at the eating thereof.

28. Also ye shall be strong in war.

29. Moreover, be they long kept, it is better; for they swell with my force. All before me.

30. My altar is of open brass work: burn thereon in silver or gold!

31. There cometh a rich man from the West who shall pour his gold upon thee.

32. From gold forge steel!

33. Be ready to fly or to smite!

34. But your holy place shall be untouched throughout the centuries: though with fire and sword it be burnt down & shattered, yet an invisible house there standeth, and shall stand until the fall of the Great Equinox; when Hrumachis shall arise and the double-wanded one assume my throne and place. Another prophet shall arise, and bring fresh fever from the skies; another woman shall awakethe lust & worship of the Snake; another soul of God and beast shall mingle in the globed priest; another sacrifice shall stain the tomb; another king shall reign; and blessing no longer be poured To the Hawk-headed mystical Lord!

35. The half of the word of Heru-ra-ha, called Hoor-pa-kraat and Ra-Hoor-Khut.

36. Then said the prophet unto the God:

37. I adore thee in the song --
I am the Lord of Thebes, and I
The inspired forth-speaker of Mentu;
For me unveils the veiled sky,
The self-slain Ankh-af-na-khonsu
Whose words are truth. I invoke, I greet
Thy presence, O Ra-Hoor-Khuit!

Unity uttermost showed!
I adore the might of Thy breath,
Supreme and terrible God,
Who makest the gods and death
To tremble before Thee: --
I, I adore thee!

Appear on the throne of Ra!
Open the ways of the Khu!
Lighten the ways of the Ka!
The ways of the Khabs run through
To stir me or still me!
Aum! let it fill me!

38. So that thy light is in me; & its red flame is as a sword in my hand to push thy order. There is a secret door that I shall make to establish thy way in all the quarters, (these are the adorations, as thou hast written), as it is said:

The light is mine; its rays consume
Me: I have made a secret door
Into the House of Ra and Tum,
Of Khephra and of Ahathoor.
I am thy Theban, O Mentu,
The prophet Ankh-af-na-khonsu!

By Bes-na-Maut my breast I beat;
By wise Ta-Nech I weave my spell.
Show thy star-splendour, O Nuit!
Bid me within thine House to dwell,
O winged snake of light, Hadit!
Abide with me, Ra-Hoor-Khuit!

39. All this and a book to say how thou didst come hither and a reproduction of this ink and paper for ever -- for in it is the word secret & not only in the English -- and thy comment upon this the Book of the Law shall be printed beautifully in red ink and black upon beautiful paper made by hand; and to each man and woman that thou meetest, were it but to dine or to drink at them, it is the Law to give. Then they shall chance to abide in this bliss or no; it is no odds. Do this quickly!

40. But the work of the comment? That is easy; and Hadit burning in thy heart shall make swift and secure thy pen.

41. Establish at thy Kaaba a clerk-house: all must be done well and with business way.

42. The ordeals thou shalt oversee thyself, save only the blind ones. Refuse none, but thou shalt know & destroy the traitors. I am Ra-Hoor-Khuit; and I am powerful to protect my servant. Success is thy proof: argue not; convert not; talk not over much! Them that seek to entrap thee, to overthrow thee, them attack without pity or quarter; & destroy them utterly. Swift as a trodden serpent turn and strike! Be thou yet deadlier than he! Drag down their souls to awful torment: laugh at their fear: spit upon them!

43. Let the Scarlet Woman beware! If pity and compassion and tenderness visit her heart; if she leave my work to toy with old sweetnesses; then shall my vengeance be known. I will slay me her child: I will alienate her heart: I will cast her out from men: as a shrinking and despised harlot shall she crawl through dusk wet streets, and die cold and an-hungered.

44. But let her raise herself in pride! Let her follow me in my way! Let her work the work of wickedness! Let her kill her heart! Let her be loud and adulterous! Let her be covered with jewels, and rich garments, and let her be shameless before all men!

45. Then will I lift her to pinnacles of power: then will I breed from her a child mightier than all the kings of the earth. I will fill her with joy: with my force shall she see & strike at the worship of Nu: she shall achieve Hadit.

46. I am the warrior Lord of the Forties: the Eighties cower before me, & are abased. I will bring you to victory & joy: I will be at your arms in battle & ye shall delight to slay. Success is your proof; courage is your armour; go on, go on, in my strength; & ye shall turn not back for any!

47. This book shall be translated into all tongues: but always with the original in the writing of the Beast; for in the chance shape of the letters and their position to one another: in these are mysteries that no Beast shall divine. Let him not seek to try: but one cometh after him, whence I say not, who shall discover the Key of it all. Then this line drawn is a key: then this circle squared in its failure is a key also. And Abrahadabra. It shall be his child & that strangely. Let him not seek after this; for thereby alone can he fall from it.

48. Now this mystery of the letters is done, and I want to go on to the holier place.

49. I am in a secret fourfold word, the blasphemy against all gods of men.

50. Curse them! Curse them! Curse them!

51. With my Hawk's head I peck at the eyes of Jesus as he hangs upon the cross.

52. I flap my wings in the face of Mohammed & blind him.

53. With my claws I tear out the flesh of the Indian and the Buddhist, Mongol and Din.

54. Bahlasti! Ompehda! I spit on your crapulous creeds.

55. Let Mary inviolate be torn upon wheels: for her sake let all chaste women be utterly despised among you!

56. Also for beauty's sake and love's!

57. Despise also all cowards; professional soldiers who dare not fight, but play; all fools despise!

58. But the keen and the proud, the royal and the lofty; ye are brothers!

59. As brothers fight ye!

60. There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.

61. There is an end of the word of the God enthroned in Ra's seat, lightening the girders of the soul.

62. To Me do ye reverence! to me come ye through tribulation of ordeal, which is bliss.

63. The fool readeth this Book of the Law, and its comment; & he understandeth it not.

64. Let him come through the first ordeal, & it will be to him as silver.

65. Through the second, gold.

66. Through the third, stones of precious water.

67. Through the fourth, ultimate sparks of the intimate fire.

68. Yet to all it shall seem beautiful. Its enemies who say not so, are mere liars.

69. There is success.

70. I am the Hawk-Headed Lord of Silence & of Strength; my nemyss shrouds the night-blue sky.

71. Hail! ye twin warriors about the pillars of the world! for your time is nigh at hand.

72. I am the Lord of the Double Wand of Power; the wand of the Force of Coph Nia--but my left hand is empty, for I have crushed an Universe; & nought remains.

73. Paste the sheets from right to left and from top to bottom: then behold!

74. There is a splendour in my name hidden and glorious, as the sun of midnight is ever the son.

75. The ending of the words is the Word Abrahadabra.

The Book of the Law is Written

and Concealed.

Aum. Ha.