Liber 418 study group - 22nd Aethyr: LIN

Aeon418

Aleister Crowley said:
22. LIN - The 49-fold Table (First appearance of the Crowned and Conquering Child to the Exempt Adept as in the Pastos) The Vision of the Rose, the Heart of BABALON and of The Birth of the Universe. - Here is the First Key to the formula of Horus, a sevenfold arrangement. A shadow of Horus declares his nature.
The Cry of the 22nd Aethyr,
Which is Called LIN

1. There comes first into the stone the mysterious table of forty-nine squares. 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.

2. 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. 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.

3. 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.)

5. 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, but to each call there are 49 visions. And each vision is composed of 49 elements, except in the 10th Aethyr, that is accursed, and that hath 42.

6. All this while the dewdrops have turned into cascades of gold finer than the eyelashes of a little child. And though the extent of the Aethyr is so enormous, one perceives each hair separately, as well as the whole thing at once. 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, so that the surface of the egg is all one dazzling blaze of liquid light.

7. 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, clothe me about.

8. All the seven senses are transmuted into one sense, and that sense is dissolved in itself ... (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 . . . I withdraw myself. I see the table again.

9. (He was behind the table for a very long time. O.V.)

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. Now in the centre within me is a glowing sun. That is the birth of hell.

14. 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. Now everything is confused, for I invoked the Mind, 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.

15. 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.

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

17. 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:

18. The voice of the Crowned Child, the Speech of the Babe that is hidden in the egg of blue. (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. I gaze into the seven spaces, and there is naught.

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

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

21. Rejoice with me, O ye Sons of the Morning; stand with me upon the Throne of Lotus; 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.

22. 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. 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.

23. 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! 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; 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, that in every word of this vision is concealed the key of many mysteries, even of being, and of knowledge, and of bliss; of will, of courage, of wisdom, and of silence, 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.

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

Bou-Sada.
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.)
Plain text versions of Liber 418 with Crowley's footnotes:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/418/418.htm
http://hermetic.com/crowley/the-vision-and-the-voice/

Liber 418 in PDF format with images:

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/cr...s/Liber418.pdf
 

Zephyros

Whenever he talks of "real things," I have to wonder what he would have interpreted it as. The music, for example, was he experiencing the joy of Zamfir? I can't tell you how wonderful Zamfir is, either. I really, really can't, that's what 80s informercials are for. ;)

I also find it interesting he was not dazed in any way upon returning.
 

Babalon Jones

Whenever he talks of "real things," I have to wonder what he would have interpreted it as. The music, for example, was he experiencing the joy of Zamfir? I can't tell you how wonderful Zamfir is, either. I really, really can't, that's what 80s informercials are for. ;)

I also find it interesting he was not dazed in any way upon returning.

Ah the joy of Zamfir, it brings back memories and creates no daze. :)

I'm interested in the number 49
7x7 Waratah-Blossoms
 

Aeon418

I'm still collecting my thoughts on this vision, but your question pulled me in. :laugh:
Whenever he talks of "real things," I have to wonder what he would have interpreted it as.
In the context of this vision Crowley is doing the best he can to describe things that are the verge of transcending rational comprehension. (This vision is attributed to Chockmah in Yetzirah.) He's trying to convey a trans-rational experience in everyday language. The upshot of this is a feeling of missing the mark or talking nonsense.

Take section 15 for example. How can you possibly have one ceaseless thundering of the word Amen, without repetition? :confused: You can't! But that's the best description he could muster for something that resists rational description.
I also find it interesting he was not dazed in any way upon returning.
By 1909 Crowley was a very experienced scryer. He learnt the technique in the Golden Dawn, and would have used it hundreds of times since then. The description of his minimalist approach in The Confessions (chp.66) shows how familiar and experienced he was with this practice.
Aleister Crowley said:
My method of obtaining "The Vision and the Voice" was as follows: I had with me a great golden topaz (set in a Calvary cross of six squares, made of wood, painted vermilion), engraved with a Greek cross of five squares charged with the Rose of forty-nine petals. I Held this as a rule in my hand. After choosing a spot where I was not likely to be disturbed, I would take this stone and recite the Enochian Key, and, after satisfying myself that the invoked forces were actually present, made the topaz play a part not unlike that of the looking-glass in the case of Alice.

I had learned not to trouble myself to travel to any desired place in the astral body. I realized that space was not a thing in itself, merely a convenient category (one of many such) by reference to which we can distinguish objects from each other. When I say I was in any Aethyr, I simply mean in the state characteristic of, and peculiar to, its nature. My senses would thus receive the subtle impressions which I had trained them to record, so becoming cognizant of the phenomena of those worlds as ordinary men are of this. I would describe what I saw and repeat what I heard and Frater O.V. would write down my words and incidentally observe any phenomena which struck him as peculiar. (For instance: I would at times pass into a deep trance so that many minutes might elapse between two successive sentences.)
Another factor may have been Crowley's 'comfort level' in this Aethyr. While the vision itself is unique, I suspect Crowley had attained the same level of consciousness many times before. This wasn't something new to him. He was still operating in familiar territory, and thus the exit from the vision wasn't a big deal. For someone approaching this same psychological country for the first time it may be a mind blowing experience (see Crowley's warnings in Liber O), but Crowley had been there and done it before. This changes later on though.
 

Aeon418

I'm interested in the number 49
7x7 Waratah-Blossoms
49, the mystic number of Venus. The magic square of Venus is 7 x 7. 49 squares in total.

The table of 49 squares that appears at the start of this vision is the same table (one of two) that was received by Dee and Kelley. From this table various names can be extracted. These names appear on the Sigillum Dei Aemeth, which is similar to the Seal of A.'.A.'., and the Star of Babalon. (The heptagon is inverted.)

http://hermetic.com/jones/in-operibus-sigillo-dei-aemeth/the-seal-of-gods-truth-4.gif

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Babalon_seal.png

In this vision the forty-nine fold table appears to be a kind of symbolic 'stand-in' for Babalon. Also the main theme of this Aethyr seems to be a stripped down replay of the Golden Dawn 5=6 ceremony that takes place within the seven-sided Vault of the Adepts - the Heart/Womb of Babalon.
 

Zephyros

Remind me again "where" we are on the Tree? Or am I mixing things up and that's irrelevant?
 

Aeon418

Remind me again "where" we are on the Tree? Or am I mixing things up and that's irrelevant?
Chokmah in Yetzirah. But just like in the previous vision of TOR (Binah in Yetzirah), this Supernal attribution isn't immediately obvious. In fact the other visions that correspond to Binah and Chokmah in Briah and Atziluth also seem to feature a similar reversal of perspective.

One thing to bear in mind about the link up between the Tree of Life and the Aethyrs is that it is not always an exact match. And the qabalistic attribution doesn't define the whole of any vision either. This is made clear within one of the later visions. (And the exact opposite is declared in another vision! :rolleyes::laugh:) But the Tree from Yetzirah to Atziluth it is a very valuable interpretive framework. Without the qabalistic road map the visions are very difficult to penetrate. For me it was the key that unlocked Crowley's visions.

Compare this:
12th Aethyr said:
But I reveal unto thee a mystery of the Aethyrs, that not only are they bound up with the Sephiroth, but also with the Paths. Now, the plane of the Aethyrs interpenetrateth and surroundeth the universe wherein the Sephiroth are established, and therefore is the order of the Aethyrs not the order of the Tree of Life. And only in a few places do they coincide. But the knowledge of the Aethyrs is deeper than the knowledge of the Sephiroth, for that in the Aethyrs is the knowledge of the Aeons, and of Θέλημα. And to each shall it be given according to his capacity.

With this:
9th Aethyr said:
And an Angel cometh forth, and behind him whirls a black swastika, made of fine filaments of light that has been "interfered" with, and he taketh me aside into a little chamber in one of the nine towers. This chamber is furnished with maps of many mystical cities. There is a table, and a strange lamp, that gives light by jetting four columns of vortex rings of luminous smoke. And he points to the map of the Aethyrs, that are arranged as a flaming Sword, so that the thirty Aethyrs go into the ten Sephiroth.
Who ever said angels were consistent? :laugh: But the 9th Aethyr is 'higer' than the 12th. So maybe those guys have a better view of things.
 

Zephyros

One thing to bear in mind about the link up between the Tree of Life and the Aethyrs is that it is not always an exact match. And the qabalistic attribution doesn't define the whole of any vision either. This is made clear within one of the later visions. (And the exact opposite is declared in another vision! :rolleyes::laugh:) But the Tree from Yetzirah to Atziluth it is a very valuable interpretive framework. Without the qabalistic road map the visions are very difficult to penetrate. For me it was the key that unlocked Crowley's visions.

I agree, it's just, you know, the way I think. It gives me a context through which to view it even if we still see "through a glass, darkly." Some sort of parallel is to be expected both because we are viewing the whole thing in a fashion twice-removed through Crowley the magician's eyes interpreted by Crowley the man and also because it is all made of the same kind of "stuff." The Emerald Tablet has become a cliché but as above, etc. would seem to apply here.
 

Aeon418

I agree, it's just, you know, the way I think.
I know. Your initial question provided part of the answer! :laugh:

Back to Chokmah in Yetzirah. Why can't Crowley accurately describe his experience in this vision? Because in the very process he's having to come down on one side of the fence or the other. But whichever side he picks, he's wrong! :confused: Chokmah in Yetzirah is both sides of the fence at the same time! :bugeyed:

22nd Aethyr said:
Now everything is confused, for I invoked the Mind, 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.
 

smw

the main theme of this Aethyr seems to be a stripped down replay of the Golden Dawn 5=6 ceremony that takes place within the seven-sided Vault of the Adepts - the Heart/Womb of Babalon.

I just noticed Eshelman saying that the Golden Dawn's formula for their 5:6 ritual is in the AA the formula of the 2:9 initiation ceremony. I was wondering if this might be to with this Aethyr relating to Chockmah as well as having a main theme at Tipareth.