The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley. Aleister Crowley

Daughter. The Son purifies the Daughter by wedding her; she thus becomes the Mother, the uniting of whom with the Father absorbs all into the Crown. See Liber CDXVIII.

35 The Top of the Wand is in Kether -- which is one; and the Qliphoth of Kether are the Thaumiel, opposing heads that rend and devour each other.

36 This book must be carefully read. Its essence is that the pupil swears to refrain from a certain thought, word, or deed; and on each breach of the oath, cuts his arm sharply with a razor. This is better than flagellation because it can be done in public, without attracting notice. It however forms one of the most hilariously exciting parlour games for the family circle ever invented. Friends and relations are always ready to do their utmost to trap you into doing the forbidden thing.

37 If it were not so there would be very few people in the world who were not blind.

38 As the Magician is in the position of God towards the Spirit that he evokes, he stands in the Circle, and the spirit in the Triangle; so the Magician is in the Triangle with respect to his own God.

39 An ugly form. A better is given in the illustration.

40 These "principles" are seen by the pupil when first he succeeds in stilling his mind. That one which happens to be in course at the moment is the one seen by him. This is so marvellous an experience, even for one who has pushed astral visions to a very high point, that he may mistake them for the End. See chapter on Dhyana. The Hebrew letters corresponding to these principles are Gimel, Resh, and Shin, and the word formed by them means "a flower" and also "expelled," "cast forth."

41 A--, the privative particle; "mrita," mortal.

42 These Lotuses are all situated in the spinal column, which has three channels, Sushumna in the middle, Ida and Pingala on either side ("cf." the Tree of Life). The central channel is compressed at the base by Kundalini, the magical power, a sleeping serpent. Awake her: she darts up the spine, and the Prana flows through the Sushumna. See "Raja-Yoga" for more details.

43 See the "Interlude" following.

44 See Equinox V, "The Training of the Mind"; Equinox II, "The Psychology of Hashish": Equinox VII, "Liber DCCCCXIII."

45 "If ye confound the space-marks, saying: They are one; or saying, They are many ... then expect the direful judgments of Ra Hoor Khuit ... }

46 The water in this Cup (the latter is also a heart, as shown by the transition from the ancient to the modern Tarot; the suit "Hearts" in old packs of cards, and even in modern Spanish and Italian cards, is called "Cups") is the letter "Mem" (the Hebrew word for water), which has for its Tarot trump the Hanged Man. This Hanged Man represents the Adept hanging by one heel from a gallows, which is in the shape of the letter Daleth -- the letter of the Empress, the heavenly Venus in the Tarot. His legs form a cross, his arms a triangle, as if by his equilibrium and self-sacrifice he were bringing the light down and establishing it even in the abyss. Elementary as this is, it is a very satisfactory hieroglyph of the Great Work, though the student is warned that the obvious sentimental interpretation will have to be discarded as soon as it has been understood. It is a very noble illusion, and therefore a very dangerous one, to figure one's self as the Redeemer. For, of all the illusions in this Cup -- the subtler and purer they are, the more difficult they are to detect.

47 See Liber Legis. Equinox VII. {{SIC to the quote, correctly: ".. bathing his whole body in a sweet-smelling perfume of sweat: O Nuit, continuous one of Heaven, let ...

48 WEH: here in Greek letters: tau-omicron-xi-omicron-nu

49 Liber LXI, the book given to those who wish to become Probationers of A.'.A.'.

50 The Oxygen in the air would be too fierce for life; it must be largely diluted with the inert nitrogen. The rational mind supports life, but about seventy-nine per cent. of it not only refuses itself to enter into combination, but prevents the remaining twenty-one per cent. from doing so. Enthusiasms are checked; the intellect is the great enemy of devotion. One of the tasks of the Magician is to manage somehow to separate the Oxygen and Nitrogen in his mind, to stifle four-fifts so that he may burn up the remainder, a flame of holiness. But this cannot be done by the Sword.

51 It should be noted that this ambiguity in the word "destruction" has been the cause of much misunderstanding. "Solve" is destruction, but so is "coagula." The aim of the Magus is to destroy his partial thought by uniting it with the Universal Thought, not to make a further breach and division in the Whole.

52 The Brahmin caste is not so strict as that of the "heaven-born" (Indian Civil Service).

53 But as it is said, "Similia similibus curantur," we find this Ruach also the symbol of the Spirit. RVCh ALHIM, the Spirit of God, is 300, the number of the holy letter Shin. As this is the breath, which by its nature is double, the two edges of the Sword, the letter H symbolises breath, and H is the letter of Aries -- the House of Mars, of the Sword: and H is also the letter of the Mother; this is the link between the Sword and the Cup.

54 It is undoubted that Ruach means primarily "that which moves or revolves," "a going," "a wheel," "the wind," and that its secondary meaning was mind because of the observed instability of mind, and its tendency to a circular motion. "Spiritus" only came to mean Spirit in the modern technical sense owing to the efforts of the theologians. We have an example of the proper use of the word in the term: Spirit of Wine -- the airy portion of wine. But the word "inspire" was perhaps derived from observing the derangement of the breathing of persons in divine ecstasy.

55 Compare the first set of verses in Liber XVI. (XVI in the Taro is Pe, Mars, the Sword.)

56 It is true that sometimes sympathy is necessary to comprehension.

57 See Crowley, "Collected Works," vol. ii, pp. 252-254.

58 We have avoided dealing with the Pantacle as the Paten of the Sacrament, though special instructions about it are given in Liber Legis. It is composed of meal, honey, wine, holy oil, and blood.

59 The Motto of the Chief of the A.'.A.'., "the Light of the World Himself."