“Initiation is not a simple phenomenon. Any given initiation must take place on several planes, and is not always conferred on all of these simultaneously. Intellectual and moral perception of truth often, one might almost say usually, precedes spiritual and physical perceptions. One would be foolish to claim initiation unless it were complete on every plane.”

- Aleister Crowley

“If one’s true Will, the reason of one’s incarnation, be to bring peace on earth, one must not perform an act of love with motives of jealousy or emulation.”

- Aleister Crowley

Or we could say: If one’s True Will, the reason of one’s incarnation, be to bring war on earth, one must not perform an act of love with motives of compassion or compromise.

What I find interesting about these conceivable True Will examples, Schmitt’s friend and enemy distinction, and the state of conflict that is naturally created.

Regrettably, it is the pacifist True Will that would be welcomed with open arms in the Thelemic community. While any notion of a warlike nature would be ridiculed as a warmonger because it is morally and politically reprehensible. There being no real difference, the pejorative intended as an insult would be received as an amusing compliment.

Crowley was at least intellectually honest with his struggle of chapter three. I think most Thelemites are disingenuous when they claim to accept The Book of the Law but none of its principles. I prefer to place Thelema at the top, the emanations of the crown, and not reserved for the bottom, with the secular world taking precedence.

“You must find your True Will, and make all your actions subservient to the one great purpose.”

- Aleister Crowley

We find our True Will with the achievement of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. This experience allows us to become aware of our nature and purpose, which we are determined to fulfil. The aspirant is an adept when they successfully complete this critical task.

Crowley offers six practical steps:

1. Furnish your mind as completely as possible with the knowledge of how to inspect and to control it.
2. Train your body to obey your mind, and not to distract its attention.
3. Control your mind to devote itself wholly to discover your true Will.
4. Explore the course of that Will till you reach its source, your Silent Self.
5. Unite the conscious will with the true Will, and the conscious Ego with the Silent Self. You must be utterly ruthless in discarding any atom of consciousness which is hostile or neutral.
6. Let this work freely from within, but heed not your environment, lest you make difference between one thing and another. Whatever it be, it is to be made one with you by Love.

The beginner shouldn’t be deterred with the difficulties that lie ahead. They should be encouraged with every challenge that awaits for them to overcome and conquer.

This teaching has been ingrained in every social and political aspects of our life. Even within the church when false teachers tell us we are little gods!

More proof that the music industry is ruled by Lucifer.

“You worship yourself when you worship Satan.”

“Do what you want to do.”

Sidebar: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law” is the Satanic philosophy derived by the founder of modern Satanism Aleister Crowley. In fact, it is the law stated in the Satanic Bible. These three videos expose how prevalent this demonic philosophy has crept into society.

LaneCh:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

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“I believe generally, on Ground both of Theory and Experience, so little as I have, that a Man must first be Initiate, and established in our Law, before he may use this Method. For in it is an Implication of our Secret Enlightenment, concerning the Universe, how its Nature is utterly Perfection. Now every Thought is a Separation, and the Medicine of that is to marry Each One with its Contradiction, as I have shewed formerly in many Writings. And thou shalt clap the one to the other with Vehemence of Spirit, swiftly as Light itself, that the Ecstasy be Spontaneous. So therefore it is expedient that thou have travelled already in this Path of Antithesis, knowing perfectly the Answer to every Glyph or Problem, and thy Mind ready therewith. For by the Property of this Grass all passeth with Speed incalculable of Wit, and an Hesitation should confound thee, breaking down thy Ladder and throwing back thy Mind to receive Impression from Environment, as at thy first Beginning. Verily, the nature of this Method is Solution, and the Destruction of every Complexity by Explosion of Ecstasy, as every Element thereof is fulfilled by its Correlative, and is annihilated (since it loseth Separate Existence) in the Orgasm that is consummated within the Bed of thy Mind.”

- Aleister Crowley

To take full advantage of Thelema, one must be an initiate. If a person isn’t able to find the right balance (comes after the imbalance) in the Law of Thelema, initiate or not, they are not very different from the troglodyte. They will be unable to penetrate the Lesser and Greater Mysteries. The nature of Thelema could be described as a system that has synthesized contradictory thoughts. It is certainly not a system of slave morality for the self-righteous fight toward equality.

“I am not I. Then, sayst thou, why is this Word? Know o my Son, that this First Person is but a Common Figure of the Speech of Men, whereof the Magus may avail himself without Implication of Metaphysick. Yet in the Mystery of Illusion, which is the Instrument of the Universal Will, I will not say the Harlot of Its Pleasure, are manifested these many Stars, and amongst them that Logos of the Aeon of Horus whom thou callest ΤΟ ΜΕΓΑ ΘΗΡΙΟΝ and thy Father. And this is by-come through Virtue of the Intensity of the Will to Change, through many a Serpent-Phase of Life and Death, until in the Play of the Game its Manifestation is the Utterance of this Word of the Aeon, this Law of Thelema, that shall be for a Season the Formula of the Magick of the Earth. Who then should inquire of the further Destiny of that Star, or of another? It is the Play of the Game, and the Operation of its Function shall suffice it. Rid thyself therefore of this Thought of ‘I’ apart from All, but, attaining to Consciousness of All by Our True Way, contemplate the Play of Illusion by thine Instrument of Mind and Sense, leaving it without Care to continue in its own Path of Change.”

- Aleister Crowley

Thelema is esoteric and exoteric. Change is a constant, conforming to the True Will of the individual. It is the restriction and interference imposed upon the will that must be abolished. Every Thelemite is essentially working to establish the stronger and higher will of ΤΟ ΜΕΓΑ ΘΗΡΙΟΝ and those that oppose it are black (they lack the light of Thelema).

Bonus addendum to this post: Ten Arguments Against NoGayMarriage.com’s “Ten Arguments Against Gay Marriage.”

Today, we will look at Aleister Crowley’s perspectives on marriage and family. This is the third part of the AC2012 series on same-sex marriage.

Convenient Contracts

We’ll admit that the title of this post may have been a little on the provocative side. It is not really same-sex marriage, but family overall that Crowley called “Public Enemy #1.” Crowley simply had few good things to say about marriage or family in the common senses of these terms. As he explains in his poem, The Poet, he brought forth the wisdom of “worship, liberty, and love” therefore disparaging “religion, law, and marriage.” Nevertheless, a poet is not a politician, and it seems Crowley knew this. In his more practical writings, he does advocate allowing marriage in the sense of a simple contract of convenience:

“Marriage would lead to very little trouble if men would get rid of the idea that it is anything more than a financial and social partnership. People should marry for convenience and agree to go their separate ways without jealousy.”

Above we find perhaps the best thing Crowley ever said about marriage in the conventional sense. If marriage were treated as nothing more than a partnership agreement over social and financial concerns, Crowley tells us in that case, it would lead to very little trouble. How romantic! But no, it’s not romantic at all, nor is it meant to be.

No form of love, romantic or otherwise, can be stitched together with a contractual agreement or religious ceremony. Love cannot really be bound by these things. Neither can such agreements and ceremonies create or preserve love between people, nor can they prevent anyone from loving another.

Perhaps the strongest objection Crowley would have to marriage in general is the same reason that so many people want it: marriage creates bonds of kinship which form the basis of the formation of families. The idea of family is not something we are accustomed to questioning much in our culture, but Crowley is intensely critical of the concept. His letter entitled “Family: Public Enemy #1″ is  very much worth reading in Magick Without Tears, where he explains at length that “… wherever the family has been strong, it has always been an engine of tyranny.”

Nevertheless, marriage is contemplated briefly in Thelema. The word “wife” appears in following verse in Liber AL vel Legis, the primary holy book of Thelema:

“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. Accurséd! Accurséd be it to the aeons! Hell.”

Aleister Crowley mentions this verse with respect to marriage:

“[Marriage] is not actually mentioned [in The Book of the Law]; but that it is contemplated is shown by the use of the word ‘wife’ [see above]. The text confirms my own thesis ‘There shall be no property in human flesh.’ So long as this is observed I see no reason why two or more people should not find it convenient to make a contract according to the laws or customs of their community.”

Furthermore, in his “Considerations of an Open Letter to Labour,” he stated very plainly that ”the restricts on marriage must be abolished.”

On the other hand, Crowley was no fan of marriage at all. Although Liber AL vel Legis declares a holiday on the anniversary of “The First Night of the Prophet and His Bride,” Crowley suggests this was an exceptional case, not quite a defense of marriage as an institution:

“… it was the marriage of The Beast which made possible the revelation of the New Law. (This is not an Apology for Marriage. Hard Cases make Bad Law).

Now that we’ve picked around the edges and discussed the decision in Maine and the idea of Marriage as a Eucharist of Life, and today we have looked at the problems of family in general, we have seen that Crowley was at best tolerant of marriage, but now it’s time to get to the core of the problem Crowley had with marriage as it is commonly understood.

“There shall be no property in human flesh!”

“The sex-instinct is one of the most deeply-seated expressions of the will; and it must not be restricted, either negatively by preventing its free function, or positively by insisting on its false function.”

Marriage as we have come to know it is often treated like an exchange of property. Vows typically consist of making idealistic promises designed to restrict and control love. This is not to say that everyone does it this way, but the exceptions are truly rare even in today’s much more sexually liberated culture. The extremely popular romantic ideals of undying love, of servitude, of the need for approval from family, friends, “God,” “Goddess,” “the Universe,” whatever: all these are accursed bonds of slavery, not of love. If Procrustes didn’t have a honeymoon suite in his hostel, he should have; the whole world would make reservations.

“Seek not to control the will of any other in the matter of Love, setting Limits either to the Will to Love or the Will to seek elsewhere the Goal of Will. For Love itself is the sole bond; all others set up strains against the Nature of Things: whereby cometh at last the ruin of all.”

The modern institution of marriage still owes much of its tradition to its origins in the Roman Catholic Church, which reformed the earlier Pagan rites but did not cease in treating the woman as property. Even some Fathers of the Roman Catholic Church advocated virginity over marriage, because of the “governance of a husband and the chains of children” (the possibility of free and sexually active women never apparently entering their imaginations).

Crowley also criticized divorce in a place and time when women were still largely treated as property with nothing to fall back on:

“Marriage is a detestable institution, but the facilities for divorce (introduced ostensibly in the interests of the woman) have cut away the economic ground from under her feet.”

This of course underscores the need for women to have the ability to make their way in the world without a dependence on men. Much has been done to effect this change in the world in the last hundred years or so, but much more needs to be done.

The Rights of Man

What does marriage really mean today? Ask the people who claim the label. It’s different for every family.

Man has the right to live by his own law.

Individual people make marriage contracts with each other. The purpose of the agreement might be toward the end of raising children, or of domestic economics, or romantic love, or religious sacrament, or meeting naturalization requirements, or hospital visitation rights, or formalizing the bonds of kinship, or many other things, or some combination of these, or none of them. The state oversees and enforces these contracts, but it has no business dictating how these contracts should be written, defined, or what classes of people may engage in them, except to prevent enslavement. There shall be no property in human flesh.

At the same time, while marriage should only be a matter between those who are married, this means that other organizations would not be required to observe or respect the terms of your marriage. Other communities of people, churches, and so on, would be equally free to have their own traditions respecting marriage; to live by their own law. Your right to live by your own law extends also to those who would not recognize your marriage in living by theirs. The Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica may recognize and celebrate same-sex marriages, but the Roman Catholic Church would not be required to confer benefits to the same-sex spouses of its employees. In his “Considerations of an Open Letter to Labour,” he explains further that religious freedom shall also be absolute so long as they do not unduly influence people:

“Religious propaganda, social movements, political agitations, shall be only permitted on proof that their principles are not repugnant to individual liberty as provided by the Law of Thelema.

“The practice of all religions shall be permitted, but the use of supernatural threats or promises to influence the will of another person unduly shall be held fraud and duress in the one, punishable with imprisonment, and in the other self-disrespect, demanding a course of treatment in a State Asylum for training the Will and developing the sense of self-hood.”

The redefinition of marriage will naturally raise a lot of questions about benefits. All this must be reevaluated in the light of the sovereignty of the individual. No longer would marriage confer tax benefits designed to encourage procreation. The overhaul of existing laws would have to be extensive, far beyond the scope of this one blog post, as Crowley indicates in various places throughout his “Considerations of an Open Letter to Labour.” For a couple of examples:

“Repeal all laws which assume that mankind is a herd of cattle. State insurance, pauper laws, registrations, conscription.”

“All laws which assist men to obtain undue influence upon others must be repealed, e.g. the bankruptcy laws, the libel laws, and the divorce laws.”

Now that we have raised all kinds of huge questions about Aleister Crowley’s political vision for the future of our country and our children, we will change the subject to something funnier.

Ten Arguments Against NoGayMarriage.com’s “Ten Arguments Against Gay Marriage”

We’d like to first offer a bit of a disclaimer about our arguments against their arguments:

1. In many of these cases, we actually agree with their arguments, and for one reason or another do not care about the supposedly horrible consequences.
2. In other cases, we agree and are actually very happy about the supposedly horrible consequences.
3. In one case, we didn’t really say much about the argument but made a different, only vaguely related point.

So much for arguments.

Our decision to use this particular list of arguments was simple and quite scientific: this is what showed up first on Google, and we were immediately inspired to respond after reading it.

Keep in mind, we are taking short summary statements from longer explanations. These summaries are not always a complete representation of their points, but our responses apply to the whole argument which you can find on their site, linked above.

1.

“The implications for children in a world of decaying families are profound.”

Decay of the family means decay of the most insidious form of tyrannical fascism known to us: slave morality propagated through the nuclear family.

Aleister Crowley would not permit children to be forced to fend for themselves on the street, as the article warns. We are all responsible for the children, and the state would enforce and facilitate the care of children, with the aim of allowing the child to develop to its full potential so that it may be best able to accomplish its will. In his “Considerations of an Open Letter to Labour,” Crowley writes: “… women must be made economically independent of men. The state must guarantee at least six months entire repose to all pregnant woman. It must establish colonies in country districts for the free support of any children whose mothers are willing to let them go there.” Indeed, the implications for children are profound.

2.

“The introduction of legalized gay marriages will lead inexorably to polygamy and other alternatives to one-man, one-woman unions.”

As we asked in our first post in this series, so what? Mind your own business. Unfortunately, many who support same-sex marriage are not quite ready to mind their own business either. Proponents of same-sex marriage will often, for example rush to denigrate polygamy and denounce it as a perversion of the idea of marriage. This is hypocrisy in our view. Mind your own business, everyone.

3.

“An even greater objective of the homosexual movement is to end the state’s compelling interest in marital relationships altogether.”

This is something Aleister Crowley would have in common with the so-called “homosexual movement.” The state shouldn’t have any compelling interest other than what it would have in any contract of convenience.

4.

“With the legalization of homosexual marriage, every public school in the nation will be required to teach that this perversion is the moral equivalent of traditional marriage between a man and a woman.”

Perversion! Moral equivocation! Compulsory corruption of our youth! Oh noes! Don’t worry, schools in a Thelemic state will not teach any moral values at all (nor will children be required to go to school). Instead, in an optional Thelemic school, children will “face facts, unadulterated by explanations.” All your traditional morality goes straight out the window on the first day of school.

5.

“… courts will not be able to favor a traditional family involving one man and one woman over a homosexual couple in matters of adoption.”

Yes, well, we are going to need all the parents we can get, now, aren’t we? With all those single parents, and the risk you mentioned earlier of children living on the streets!

We frankly think that there are a lot of other criteria that could be looked at by a court to determine whether a person or persons should be allowed to adopt a child. In fact, a recent study suggests that your kid would be better off with lesbian parents.

6.

“Foster-care parents will be required to undergo “sensitivity training” to rid themselves of bias in favor of traditional marriage, and will have to affirm homosexuality in children and teens.”

We think it is important that children not be taught to hate others because of their sexual orientation. Having biases toward particular forms of human relationship brings about hatred and tyranny. As Crowley wrote,  “The submergence of the individual in his class means the end of all true human relations between men.” Beyond this, though, imposing any moral teaching on a child deprives it of the ability to “develop its own Individuality, and Will, disregarding alien Ideals.” In a Thelemic state, the government will be most concerned with the rights of the child, rather than upholding the ability of parents or religious groups to indoctrinate the child into moral slavery. In “Considerations of an Open Letter to Labour,” Crowley makes this perfectly clear:

“The police shall interfere with civil liberty in two cases only: firstly, when any individual demands redress against aggression of any sort – including the bullying of boys and girls by fanatical parents. Secondly, when the peace is menaced by bands of persons associated for the purpose of imposing their ideas by force upon their neighbours.”

7.

“How about the impact on Social Security if there are millions of new dependents that will be entitled to survivor benefits? … And how about the cost to American businesses? … Are state and municipal governments to be required to raise taxes substantially to provide health insurance and other benefits to millions of new ’spouses and other dependents’?”

Oh you’re right, let’s just toss the idea of individual liberty out the window because it will create a headache for some bureaucrats.

Look, we understand that the consequences of gutting the institutions of marriage and the nuclear family will be deep and wide. We agree that matters such as these would need to be carefully considered, and some programs would have to undergo significant overhaul. We welcome experts in all fields to deliberate over how the principles of individual liberty can be applied to solve these problems.

8.

“Marriage among homosexuals will spread throughout the world, just as pornography did after the Nixon Commission declared obscene material “beneficial” to mankind.”

Again, it’s really not the business of government to regulate whether these contracts spread among any particular groups. We are frankly thrilled to pieces about that porn, by the way. Nixon, huh? Who knew?

9.

“… the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ will be severely curtailed.”

Jesus, who said, “anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.” So we guess that the people at NoGayMarriage.com would also be fully supportive of the 2010 California Marriage Protection Act, which promises to safeguard marriage from the evils of divorce!

Anyway, the argument that gay marriage will make it more difficult to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ… Did we mention before that the nuclear family is the most insidious form of tyrannical fascism known to us? Yes, yes we did. Thanks for really driving that point home for us.

10.

“This is the climactic moment in the battle to preserve the family, and future generations hang in the balance.”

In the fight for freedom, there is only one choice in 2012: write in Aleister Crowley for President!

“Now then at last art thou made ready to confront the Pyramid, when thou art established as a Sphinx. For It also hath the foursquare Base of Law, and the Four Triangles of Light, Life, Love, and Liberty for its Sides, that meet in a Point of Perfection that is Hadit, poised to the Kiss of Nuit. But in this Pyramid there is no Difference of Form between the Sides, as it is in thy Sphinx, for these are wholly One, save in Direction. Thou art then an Harmony of the Four by Right of thine Attainment of Adeptship, the Crown of thy Manhood, but not an Identity, as in Godhead. Therefore may it be said from one Point of Sight that thine Achievement is but a Preparation, an Adornment of the Bride for the Temple of Hymen, and his Rite. Verily, o my Son, I deem in my Wisdom that this whole Work of thy Development to Sphinx-hood cometh before the Work of Theurgy, for the Lord descendeth not upon a Temple ill-conceived, and builded awry, nor abideth in a Shrine unworthy. Accomplish then this Task in Patience, with Assiduity, not hasting furiously after Godliness. For this is most sure, that to the Beauty of a Maiden answereth the Lust of her Lord, spontaneous, and without Effort or Appeal of her Contriving.”

- Aleister Crowley

This is accomplished in the A∴A∴ and the OTO. Unfortunately, it is one of the least understood subjects and in many instances, a false pyramid is constructed which invites the infinite forms of Choronzon. The Lord never descends in a tongue of red flame because the aspirant has not raised their lambent blue flame of devotion.

“This Property of thy Mind, my Son, is verily of sublime Virtue; for the Vulgar are befogged, and their Judgment made null, by their emotional Reaction. They are swayed by the Eloquence of a Numscull, or overpowered by a Name, or an Office, or the Magic of a Tailor; else, it may be they, being made Fools too often, reject without Reflection even as at first they accepted. Again, they are wont to believe the best or the worst, as Hope or Fear predominateth in them at the Moment. Thus, they lose Touch of the Blade of Reality, and it pierceth them. Then they in Delirium of their Wounds increase Delusion, fortifying themselves in Belief of those Phantasies created by their Emotions or impressed upon their Silliness, so that their Minds have no Unity, or Stability, or Discrimination, but become Hotchpot, and the Ordure of Choronzon. O my Son, against this the Law of Thelema is a Sure Fortress, for through the Quest of thy True Will the Mind is balanced about it, and confirmeth its Flight, as the Feathers upon an Arrow, so that thou hast a Touchstone of Truth, Experience holding thee to Reality, and to Proportion. Now therefore see from yet another Airt of Heaven the Absolute Virtue of Our Law.”

- Aleister Crowley

We can see this manifest when Thelemites allow their political orientation to trump the Law of Thelema. They refuse to give up their prejudices because they are unable to resolve the conflicts that Thelema creates.

Most people think of “crazy” when we hear ”Scientologists” but how many of us relate them to Satanism. Well, there is a solid connection of the two that you might be surprised to learn. Basically, Scientology is Satanism with a new name. This video from Good Fight Ministries shows you the connection. Get informed and pass it along.

“Adonai! Adonai! my Lord Adonai! indeed, Thou hast forsaken me. Nay! thou liest, O weak soul! Abide in the meditation; unite all thy symbols into the form of the Lion, and be lord of thy jungle, travelling through the servile Universe even as Mau the Lion very lordly, the Sun in His strength that travelleth over the heaven of Nu in His bark in the mid-career of Day.”

- Aleister Crowley

Lon Duquette has a hilarious new video out. Professional occultist Jason Miller asks, Really? We wonder, really what, Jason?

Yes, the song is really, really, funny. Really? Really. Here, everyone, is the video in question, for reals:

We won’t spend any time arguing about whether or not it is morally appropriate or too juvenile to laugh at this song. We won’t bother to explain to Jason the historical basis for the accusations that Lon is making, or the rational underpinning of the attack he is making against Christianity and Christmas in his funny song. That would be sort of pedantic. The song is funny.

Instead, we will simply offer some of the more benign statements from Aleister Crowley on the topic of Christianity in his commentary on Liber AL vel Legis for those who are curious. Click through to see much, much more.

“… the cringing cowardice of the damnation-dodging Christians with their unmanly and dishonest acceptance of vicarious sacrifice, and their currish conception of themselves as ‘born in sin,’ ‘miserable sinners’ with ‘no health in us.’”

“Women under Christianity are kept virgin for the market as Strasbourg geese are nailed to boards till their livers putrefy. The nature of woman has been corrupted, her hope of a soul thwarted, her proper pleasure balked, and her mind poisoned, to titillate the jaded palates of senile bankers and ambassadors.”

“… it is the eyes of ‘Jesus’ — his point of view — that must be destroyed; and this point of view is wrong because of his Magical Gesture of self-sacrifice.”

Finally, here is a video of Christopher Hitchens for those of you itching for even more criticism of Christianity.

“Nuit commands mankind to invoke Her, that is, to fulfil their utmost Selfhood, under Her stars, that is, by the study of all other Points of View beside one’s own.”

- The Djeridensis Working

I don’t think the Thelemic community resembles a group of critical thinkers which study different points of view. We seldom hear things like this:

“Let this be done dispassionately; the more convinced you are that a certain point of view is right, the more determined you should be to find proofs that it is wrong.”

When Crowley is quoted, it becomes an affirmation and Thelema is reduced to an abstract justification for their cherished points of view. We are bombarded with the reminder that Crowley isn’t infallible (as if we didn’t already know that) but people rarely say that about their own positions.

I could be wrong about several things and I am happy to revise my opinions if there are indisputable facts which prove otherwise.

OK, it turns out the sound quality of the video I did the other night, Zen Master Taking Out the Garbage (Part 1) elsewhere on this page was poorer than it should have been, and people have asked me for a transcript, including the long Aleister Crowley, book of Thoth quote, so be it

This and the two (or three) videos that will follow in this sequence comes from new insight I’ve gained into the Fool’s Journey, in this case in the three card sequence, Temperance, The Devil and the Tower.

Satori, enlightenment, Shaktipat, that one moment of awakeness where you feel godhead flowing through you and everything feels right. You neither want nor don’t want. It is neither pleasure nor pain and words are just inadequate to describe it.
One Definition of the Temperance card is as follows:

“Your Holy Guardian Angel appears in a fleeting golden moment, suspended in a beam of light. She draws the fire of heaven down from above as she summons earthly energy up from below. You are being prepared for an alchemical wedding, which will empower and transform you forever.” ¹

Temperance Card from Legacy of the Divine Tarot by Ciro Marchetti

Aleister Crowley has this to say about the Temperance card which he calls Art

“This card is the complement and the fulfillment of Atu VI, Gemini. It pertains to Sagittarius, the opposite to Gemini in the Zodiac, and therefore, “after another manner,” one with it. Sagittarius means the Archer; and the card is (in its simplest and most primitive form) a picture of Diana the Huntress. Diana is primarily one of the lunar goddesses, though the Romans rather degraded her from the Greek “virgin Artemis”, who is also the Great Mother of Fertility, Diana of the Ephesians, Many-Breasted. (A form of Isis-see Atu II and III.)

The connection between the Moon and the Huntress is shewn by the shape of the bow, and the occult significance of Sagittarius is the arrow piercing the rainbow; the last three paths of the Tree of Life make the word Qesheth, a rainbow, and Sagittarius bears the arrow which pierces the rainbow, for his path leads from the Moon of Yesod to the Sun of Tiphareth. (This explanation is highly technical; but this is necessary because the card represents an important scientific formula, which cannot be expressed in language suited to common comprehension.)

This card represents the Consummation of the Royal Marriage which took place in Atu VI. The black and white personages are now united in a single androgyne figure. Even the Bees and the Serpents on their robes have made an alliance. The Red Lion has become white, and increased in size and importance, while the White Eagle, similarly expanded, has become red. He has exchanged his red blood for her white gluten. (It is impossible to explain these terms to any but advanced students of alchemy.)
The equilibrium and counter-change are carried out completely in the figure itself; the white woman has now a black bead; the black king, a white one. She wears the golden crown with a silver band, he, the silver crown with a golden fillet; but the white head on the right is extended in action by a white arm on the left which holds the cup of the white gluten, while the black head on the left has the black arm on the right, holding the lance which has become a torch and pours forth its burning blood. The fire burns up the water; the water extinguishes the fire.

The robe of the figure is green, which symbolizes vegetable growth: this is an alchemical allegory. In the symbolism of the fathers of science, all “actual” objects were regarded as dead; the difficulty of transmuting metals was that the metals, as they occur in nature, were in the nature of excrements, because they did not grow. The first problem of alchemy was to raise mineral to vegetable life; the adepts thought that the proper way to do this was to imitate the processes of nature. Distillation, for instance, was not an operation to be performed by heating something in a retort over a flame; it had to take place naturally, even if months were required to consummate the Work. (Months, at that period of civilization, were at the disposal of enquiring minds.)

A great deal of what people now consider ignorance, being themselves ignorant of what the men of old time thought, comes from this misapprehension. At the bottom of this card, for example, are seen Fire and Water harmoniously mingled. But this is only a crude symbol of the spiritual idea, which is the satisfaction of the desire of the incomplete element of one kind to satisfy its formula by assimilation of its equal and opposite.

This state of the great Work therefore consisted in the mingling of the contradictory elements in a cauldron. This is here represented as golden or solar, because the Sun is the Father of all Life, and (in particular) presides over distillation. The fertility of the Earth is maintained by rain and sun; the rain is formed by a slow and gentle process, and is rendered effective by the co-operation of air, which is itself alchemically the result of the Marriage of Fire and Water. So also the formula of continued life is death, or putrefaction. Here it is symbolized by the caput mortuum on the cauldron, a raven perched upon a skull. In agricultural terms, this is the fallow earth.”
Rising from the cauldron, as the result of the operation per- formed ~ is a stream of light which becomes two rainbows; they form the cape of the androgyne figure. In the centre, an arrow shoots upwards. This is connected with the general symbolism previously explained, the spiritualization of the result of the Great Work.²

The great work being, the marriage of material man with the spiritual self (or godhead)

So You have this point of balance, this symbol of the Philosopher’s Stone, which symbolizes taking the base nature of the material self and purifying it for union with spirit–Satori, or enlightenment, if you will.
So you reach that point of balance. Like the Zen Master replied when asked
“What did you do before enlightenment?”
“I took out the trash”
“What did you do after enlightenment?”
“I took out the trash”
So, what comes next? You have that union with godhead,that union with your higher self, that glimpse if you will of what lies behind the curtain and then you come back down. What do you face next? Well the next card in sequence is The Devil
(To Be Continued…)

¹Gateway to the Divine Tarot by Ciro Marchetti Llewellyn Publications 2009 p. 124

²The Book of Thoth (Egyptian Tarot) by The Master Therion (Aleister Crowley) US Games Systems Inc. 1944 pp 101-103

We are pleased to announce that a new AC2012 campaign has emerged for Mexico and the whole Spanish-speaking world. Continue reading to learn more.

Our supporters in Mexico City have translated four posts so far and will continue to translate and adapt posts to the Mexican political climate. In addition to the Mexico campaign, another site has sprung up which appears to be the beginnings of a Serbian campaign for AC2012.

If you would like to create your own AC2012 campaign, feel free to use our graphics to create one in your own language, or incorporating your own ideas as Crowley’s running mate, or perhaps you want to make some new artwork or write a story based on the concept. Feel free! We just ask that you link back to this main site. AC2012 is under a Creative Commons license, so you can use the image freely (even commercially) if you attach a URL to this site.

If you would like to get in touch with us and get help with your own AC2012 campaign activities, contact aleister.crowley.2012@gmail.com and we will be happy to assist as time permits.

“There is no royal road to illumination; that which I say in Light is true to the children of the Light; to them of darkness is a confusion and a snare.”

- Aleister Crowley

I have been in the hospital with a real shitty virus. Yuck!

So why do we suffer and have bad things happen to us? I mean aside from asswipes who run hospitals for profit and thus hire staff for $20,000 who don’t know a hemorrhoid from a hominy grit… Bad things happen to good people because of the idea expressed by your humble servant in the image to the left. Need an explanation? Click the image to get to my website and scout around. You will see… And I have FREE stuff there for you! Or just pop me a comment here and forget the free readings and the free books and the free movie show about science and religion. Just write me… I don’t bite. Not on the first date, anyway…

And remember: Single payer is the way to go. Just ask the man in the White House who promised to end the wars… Said he would send one or two brigades to Afghanistan, now he wants to WIN WIN WIN. Win WHAT?!?!? Win us real health care, not mandatory insurance policies. That’s INSANE!!

Enough for today. Just wanted to say I am back after a month of illness. You are all kind and I love you for asking about me. One of you tracked me at home to see if I was ok! You’re the best!  So new posts coming SOON! Love ya!