The Vision and the Voice

The Cry of the 22nd Aethyr

LIN[1]

There comes first into the stone the mysterious table of forty-nine squares.[2] It is surrounded by an innumerable company of angels; these angels are of all kinds, — some brilliant and flashing as gods, down to elemental creatures. The light comes and goes on the tablet; and now it is steady, and I perceive that each letter of the tablet is composed of forty-nine other letters, in a language which looks like that of Honorius; but when I would read, the letter that I look at becomes indistinct at once.

And now there comes an Angel, to hide the tablet with his mighty wing. This Angel has all the colours mingled in his dress; his head is proud and beautiful; his headdress is of silver and red and blue and gold and black, like cascades of water, and in his left hand he has a pan-pipe of the seven holy metals, upon which he plays.[3] I cannot tell you how wonderful the music is, but it is so wonderful that one only lives in one's ears; one cannot see anything any more.

Now he stops playing and moves with his finger in the air. His finger leaves a trail of fire of every colour, so that the whole Aire is become like a web of mingled lights. But through it all drops dew.[4]

(I can't describe these things at all. Dew doesn't represent what I mean in the least. For instance, these drops of dew are enormous globes, shining like the full moon, only perfectly transparent, as well as perfectly luminous.)

And now he shows the tablet again, and he says: As there are 49 letters in the tablet, so are there 49 kinds of cosmos in every thought of God. And there are 49 interpretations of every cosmos, and each interpretation is manifested in 49 ways. Thus also are the calls 49,[5] but to each call there are 49 visions. And each vision is composed of 49 elements, except in the 10th Aethyr, that is accurséd, and that hath 42.[6]

All this while the dewdrops have turned into cascades of gold finer than the eyelashes of a little child.[7] And though the extent of the Aethyr is so enormous, one perceives each hair separately, as well as the whole thing at once.[8] And now there is a mighty concourse of angels rushing toward me from every side, and they melt upon the surface of the egg in which I am standing in the form of the god Kneph,[9] so that the surface of the egg is all one dazzling blaze of liquid light.

Now I move up against the tablet, — I cannot tell you with what rapture. And all the names of God, that are not known even to the angels,[10] clothe me about.

All the seven senses are transmuted into one sense, and that sense is dissolved in itself.[11] … (Here occurs Samadhi.) … Let me speak, O God; let me declare it … all. It is useless; my heart faints, my breath stops. There is no link between me and P.…[12] I withdraw myself. I see the table again.

(He was behind the table for a very long time.[13] O.V.)

And all the table burns with intolerable light; there has been no such light in any of the Aethyrs until now. And now the table draws me back into itself; I am no more.

My arms were out in the form of a cross, and that Cross was extended, blazing with light into infinity. I myself am the minutest point in it. This is the birth of form.[14]

I am encircled by an immense sphere of many-coloured bands; it seems it is the sphere of the Sephiroth projected in the three dimensions. This is the birth of death.[15]

Now in the centre within me is a glowing sun. That is the birth of hell.[16]

Now all that is swept away, washed away by the table. It is the virtue of the table to sweep everything away. It is the letter I in this Aethyr that gives this vision, and L is its purity, and N is its energy.[17] Now everything is confused, for I invoked the Mind,[18] that is disruption. Every Adept who beholds this vision is corrupted by mind. Yet it is by virtue of mind that he endures it, and passes on, if so be that he pass on. Yet there is nothing higher than this, for it is perfectly balanced in itself. I cannot read a word of the holy Table, for the letters of the Table are all wrong. They are only the shadows of shadows. And whoso beholdeth this Table with this rapture, is light. The true word for light hath seven letters. They are the same as ARARITA, transmuted.[19]

There is a voice in this Aethyr, but it cannot be spoken. The only way one can represent it is as a ceaseless thundering of the word Amen. It is not a repetition of Amen, because there is no time. It is one Amen continuous.[20]

Shall mine eye fade before thy glory? I am the eye. That is why the eye is seventy.[21] You can never understand why, except in this vision.[22]

And now the table recedes from me. Far, far it goes, streaming with light. And there are two black angels bending over me, covering me with their wings, shutting me up into the darkness; and I am lying in the Pastos of our Father Christian Rosenkreutz, beneath the Table in the Vault of seven sides. And I hear these words:

The voice of the Crowned Child, the Speech of the Babe that is hidden in the egg of blue.[23] (Before me is the flaming Rosy Cross.) I have opened mine eye, and the universe is dissolved before me, for force is mine upper eye-lid and matter is my lower eye-lid.[24] I gaze into the seven spaces, and there is naught.[25]

The rest of it comes without words; and then again:

I have gone forth to war, and I have slain him that sat upon the sea, crowned with the winds.[26] I put forth my power and he was broken. I withdrew my power and he was ground into fine dust.[27]

Rejoice with me, O ye Sons of the Morning; stand with me upon the Throne of Lotus;[28] gather yourselves up unto me, and we shall play together in the fields of light. I have passed into the Kingdom of the West after my Father.[29]

Behold! where are now the darkness and the terror and the lamentation? For ye are born into the new Aeon; ye shall not suffer death.[30] Bind up your girdles of gold! Wreathe yourselves with garlands of my unfading flowers! In the nights we will dance together, and in the morning we will go forth to war; for, as my Father liveth that was dead, so do I live and shall never die.[31]

And now the table comes rushing back. It covers the whole stone, but this time it pushes me before it, and a terrible voice cries: Begone! Thou hast profaned the mystery; thou hast eaten of the shew-bread; thou hast spilt the consecrated wine![32] Begone! For the Voice is accomplished. Begone! For that which was open is shut. And thou shalt not avail to open it, saving by virtue of him whose name is one, whose spirit is one, whose individuum is one, and whose permutation is one;[33] whose light is one, whose life is one, whose love is one. For though thou art joined to the inmost mystery of the heaven, thou must accomplish the sevenfold task of the earth, even as thou sawest the Angels from the greatest unto the least. And of all this shalt thou take back with thee but a little part, for the sense shall be darkened, and the shrine re-veiled. Yet know this for thy reproof, and for the stirring up of discontent in them whose swords are of lath,[34] that in every word of this vision is concealed the key of many mysteries, even of being, and of knowledge, and of bliss;[35] of will, of courage, of wisdom, and of silence,[36] and of that which, being all these, is greater than all these. Begone! For the night of life is fallen upon thee. And the veil of light hideth that which is.

With that, I suddenly see the world as it is, and I am very sorrowful.

Bou Sâada.

November 28, 1909. 4-6 p.m.

(Note. — You do not come back in any way dazed; it is like going from one room into another. Regained normal consciousness completely and immediately.)

[1] LIN = Cancer, Sagittarius, Scorpio, transliterated into Hebrew is Chassan (Cheth, Samech, Nun) ruler of Air. Also strength. It adds to 118, which is twice 59. 59 = Brethren (referred especially to Lilith and Samael). LIN declares therefore the twins concealed in Heru-Ra-Ha. 118 is also (see Sepher Sephiroth) "to change, pass, renew and to ferment," indicating the formula of Horus. His first formula is that of BABALON, for He is as yet within her womb. But see note on 10th Aethyr regarding Paraoan.

[2] See Equinox VII, p. 231. This table contains the names of the Angels of the seven Planetary spheres: Shabathiel, Tzadquiel, Madimiel, Shemashiel, Nogahel, Kikabiel, and Levaniel. This seven-fold arrangement is of the Sigil of the A∴A∴ = Babalon. (See The Book of Lies, Cap. 49.) And she is the mother of Heru-Ra-Ha.

[3] This angel is in fact Pan. See the 9th Aethyr, unto all hath she borne him.

[4] This "dew" is the supernal Lion-Serpent in his menstruum of liquid pearl. A reference to the IX° O.T.O.

[5] 42 is the number of the Demiurge (See Genesis, I), of the Assessors of the Dead (See any book on Egyptian religion), of the sterile mother Ama (Aleph, Mem, Aleph); of terror and destruction (Beth, Lamed, Heh, Heh), of loss (Beth, Lamed, Yod), of the verb, "to cease" (Chadal — Cheth, Daleth, Lamed) and the 10th Aethyr. (See Equinox VII, pp. 229-243, for the whole symbolism.)

[6] See Equinox VII, pp.99-128.

[7] The solar child develops from the dew.

[8] These violations of normal logic are stigmatic of most of the higher types of spiritual experience. There must be no muddle; that is the usual mistake made by most mystics. Confused thought is the evil and averse image of the one clear light.

[9] The winged egg, the omniform Zero (0) from which all positive manifestation comes.

[10] These are of the table itself, read across or down, instead of diagonally, as is done to obtain the names given in Note 5. See also LXXXIV (page 321), Equinox VII, relative to the Enochian system.

[11] This experience is perfectly clear and definite to the peculiar type of higher consciousness which is aware of it.

[12] Perdurabo, the motto (in the Outer Order of the Golden Dawn) of the Seer. Even that high and holy part of him was, in this samadhi, left far below the true consciousness with the material and intellectual basis of him.

[13] The Seer was in samadhi. The table had been a veil of the infinite.

[14] Form is the conception of the self in extension.

[15] Death is the conception of the self extended; not into the positive balanced cross, but into the negative circle (or sphere) of Nuit.

[16] For Hell, see Liber Aleph, The Book of Wisdom or Folly. Hell is the secret centre of the self. One perceives one's star as one's true self.

[17] The Enochian letter I = Sagittarius. The Rainbow is connected with the sevenfold projection. L (Enochian) = Luna, decreasing in Cancer. Luna, when active, always purifies. It is the passive Moon that may be evil; i.e., when she reflects not the Sun, her Lord, but divers spectres of the night. N (Enochian) = Mars in Scorpio, the type of energy which informs vision. Mars in Taurus would cause action.

[18] The Seer had begun to analyze the conceptions presented to him by the vision. Instantly the internal coherence of its unity was destroyed. The next two phrases show that this is a difficulty peculiar to this vision.

[19] Yod, Aleph, Tau, Vau, Aleph, Yod, Aleph, Resh = the essence of the Yod girt by the Sun's tending inwardly upon it. Resh, Aleph, Yod, Aleph, Resh = 412 = Beth (meaning a house) = the letter Beth attributed to Mercury (the letter Beth being spelled out in full: Beth, Yod, Tau = 412). For ultimately Kether and Sol are not light. Light is a duplex vibration energized by them and is therefore of their messenger, Mercury.

[20] AUMGN. (See explanation in Magick in Theory and Practice, pp. 45-49.)

[21] Ayin = an eye = 70.

[22] The general idea is perhaps this: 70 = Heh, Shin, Heh = Hush!; and Layil = Lamed, Yod, Lamed = Night; and Sod = Samech, Vau, Daleth, the Secret. The glory is so great that it cannot be manifested by any positive means.

[23] Heru-Ra-Ha.

[24] These ideas are complementary; when they combine they produce positive manifestation which covers up the glance of the Eye of Shiva, which annihalates all external existence.

[25] 7 Sephirotic palaces The seven spaces are the Palaces which contain the Sephiroth.

[26] This is the foe of Horus, the dweller of Nile. The winds which crown him are not the pure powers of Air of Libra, but the cloud (mixed) forces of Aquarius, opposite in the Zodiac to Leo, the sign of Horus.

[27] The energy of Horus destroys indeed, but must be withdrawn to complete the work, for his rays, if left in their object, would keep it vitalized. The coherence of the broken matter must be withdrawn.

[28] Harpocrates stands or sits upon the lotus, his fortress against the malice of the water-demon.

[29] Osiris has been chased into Amennti by Horus, who follows him thither, that his reign may be established even in the realms of death. In the New Aeon death is become life triumphant, not through resurrection, but in its own essence.

[30] See Note 29. The Thelemite does not suffer death. He is eternal and perceives himself the Universe, by virtue of the categories of life and death, which are not real but subjective conditions of his perception, like time and space. They are forms of his artistic presentation.

[31] Osiris, tricked into the belief in death, had to overcome it by Magick, the formula IAO.

[32] The Seer has erred, it seems, by translating the doctrine into intelligible symbols. For this is likely to cause a new fall into the barren kingdoms of ratiocination.

[33] ARARITA (a name of God, which is a notariqon of the sentence: "One is His beginning; one is His individuality; His permutation one.") The use of this name and formula is to equate and identify every idea with its opposite; thus being released from the obsession of thinking any one of them as "true" (and therefore binding), one can withdraw oneself from the whole sphere of the Ruach. See Liber 813 vel Ararita, the Holy Books. Contrast each verse of Cap. I with the corresponding verse of Cap. II for the first of these methods. Thus in Cap III (still verse by verse correspondence) the quintessence of the ideas is extracted, and in Cap. IV they have disappeared into the method itself. In Cap. VI they reappear in the form appointed by the will of the adept. Lastly, in Cap. VII they are dissolved, one into the next until all finally disappear in the fire Qadosh, the quintessence of reality.

[34] Those whose analytical methods are incapable of destroying illusion. This insistence on the virtue of the vision is intended to encourage them to make greater effort.

[35] Sat-Chit-Ananda. (Being-Consciousness-Bliss.)

[36] The Sphinx. (See Enochian section, Vol. 4, Golden Dawn.)