Thelema Lodge Calendar for March 2003 e.v.

Thelema Lodge Calendar

for March 2003 e.v.

The viewpoints and opinions expressed herein are the responsibility of the contributing authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of OTO or its officers.

Thelema Lodge
Ordo Templi Orientis
P.O.Box 2303
Berkeley, CA 94702 USA

March 2003 e.v. at Thelema Lodge

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Announcements from
Lodge Members and Officers

March Forth!

Vernal Equinox falls on Thursday afternoon 20th March, when at precisely five o'clock Sol enters Aries and the aeon of Horus opens the year 99. Spring at the lodge will be greeted with a seasonal ritual in Horus Temple at 7:00 that evening, and a communal feast afterwards. Bring dinner dishes and drinks to contribute to our common table, and welcome in the year of Lust together.

March forth for Mardi Gras in the Berkeley parade of the One True Church of the Great Green Frog, starting in Berkeley at People's Park around 2:22 on Tuesday afternoon 4th March.

The Heptarchia Mystica of John Dee forms the basis for our fortnightly Enochian study group under the direction of brother Charles Humphries. Join the seminar on alternate Wednesday evenings, this month on the 5th and 19th of March, from 8:00 until 10:00 in the lodge library.

Our Pathworking series continues with regular meetings on the third Friday evening of each month, assembling next on Friday evening 21st March at 8:00 in Horus Temple. Participants share an extended programmatic meditation on the Tree of Life, led by brother Paul Aparicio.

The gnostic mass is celebrated every Sunday evening in Horus Temple according to the liturgy of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica. This "solar phallic" cult has been the center of our community of celebration at Thelema Lodge for many years, and provides the best opportunity for visitors to meet the members here and participate in ritual with us. Arrive at 7:30 any Sunday evening to join the communion, assembling in the lodge library to await the summons of the deacon into the sanctuary of the gnosis. Call well ahead for directions if you have not previously attended. To serve the lodge at mass as an officer in the ritual, form a team to practice until you have trained each other to celebrate the liturgy with grace and understanding, then arrange with the lodgemaster to reserve a date on the temple calendar.

Initiation through the Man of Earth degrees of Ordo Templi Orientis is offered at Thelema Lodge under charter from the United States Grand Lodge of O.T.O., and is available by application to all who are free, of full age, and of good report. Specific pledge forms for sponsorship to each of the degrees from Minerval through IV are available from lodge officers at any temple or library event. Upon submission of the completed application to the lodgemaster and its forwarding on to the US Initiation Secretary there is a minimum wait of one full month, with additional time often required for scheduling of the ritual by our teams of initiation officers. Candidates must remain in close touch with their sponsors during this period in order to keep these plans current. The lodge has initiations next scheduled of Saturday 15th March, with all members who plan to attend required to consult ahead of time with the lodge officers in order to learn the time, place, and degree to be worked.

Spirit is the Subject

What is "Spirit?" As magicians we use this term all the time, often without a clear idea of what we mean. On Wednesday evening 12th March at 8:00 in the lodge library, this month's Magical Forum will gather to hear and critique a paper entitled "Spirit is Not a Substance." Read by Nathan, it will explore several philosophical approaches to the question of Spirit. In particular, we will criticize a common, but ultimately problematic, conception of Spirit as a kind of super-substance. In this approach, Spirit is conceived of as a phenomenon, like matter or energy, but differentiated by being in some unclear way "spiritual." If Spirit is transcendent, it cannot be a thing, or be objectified, for precisely thus it would loose transcendence, being brought within the realm of the phenomenal. How then can Spirit be grasped as Spirit? It can only be grasped if it is recognized as non-dual with our own consciousness. Spirit is a subject, not an object. (The Magical Forum is an ongoing series of monthly presentations at Thelema Lodge on a variety of topics germain to the work of the Order and the interests of the community. Anyone can contribute, and if you are interested in presenting an original paper or ritual please contact the facilitator, Nathan, at balaam93@aol.com)

Beware of All that Twisty Sex

    The classic fairy novel The Crock of Gold by James Stephens will be read aloud and discussed together by the Section Two reading group this month, meeting with Caitlin in the lodge library from 8:00 until 9:30 on Monday evening 24th March. This Irish pastoral tale is populated by leprechauns and little people, by simple farmers, wise women, and their children, and by various gods who inhabit the edges of its strange green world. Stephens, born in Dublin in 1882, was a self-educated law clerk in 1909 e.v. when he began to publish lyric poetry and stories of traditional Irish life. Encouraged by his friends George Russell and James Joyce, it was The Crock of Gold, his second novel, which made Stephens famous as an author. Joyce later considered him as a possible collaborator on the work which became Finnegans Wake, and the two writers share a sense of intelligent irony as well as a dedication to the rhythms and cadences of common Irish speech. Nevertheless, Stephens retired to London on his literary celebrity as soon as he could afford to leave Ireland, living until 1950 e.v. and becoming a well-known reader over BBC radio.
    In bringing the great god Pan into Ireland as a character in The Crock of Gold, Stephens took care to surround his rough, wild, divine presence with a full panoply of Celtic supernatural folklore, setting the story amidst the most timelessly traditional rural life. After leprechauns have lured away the Irish children Brigid and Seumas to entertain them in an underground house below the roots of a great tree, it seems hardly unusual when they encounter with Pan in the same woods. When that same goat-foot god meets a young woman named Caitilin Ni Murrachu, she is so charmed to see that Pan is "naked and unashamed" (making it obvious that "his need of her was very great") that she immediately goes off to live with him.
    "I don't know what you want me to do," said the girl.
    "I want you to want me. I want you to forget right and wrong; to be as happy as the beasts, as careless as the flowers and the birds. To live to the depths of your nature as well as to the heights. Truely there are stars in the heights and they will be a garland for your forehead. But the depths are equal to the heights. Wondrous deep are the depths, very fertile is the lowest deep. There are stars there also, brighter than the stars on high. The name of the heights is Wisdom and the name of the depths of Love. How shall they come together and be fruitful if you do not plunge deeply and fearlessly? Wisdom is the spirit and the wings of the spirit, Love is the shaggy beast that goes down. Gallantly he dives, below thought, beyond Wisdom, to raise again as high above these as he had first descended. Wisdom is righteous and clean, but Love is unclean and holy."
    In the end, however, Caitilin bids the goat-foot god goodbye and goes off with another divine force, settling down to raise a family with the native Celtic sun god and fertility spirit named Angus Og.

Previous Section Two Next Section Two

All Rite Already

The first planning meeting for this year's cycle of The Rites of Eleusis will be held in the lodge library at 8:00 on Monday evening 31st March. Eleusis is scheduled slightly earlier this year than last (which is why it may seem like we just got through the previous cycle!) opening with "The Rite of Saturn" on Saturday evening 31st May to run as usual at intervals of twelve days through "The Rite of Luna" at the full moon on Monday evening 11th August. There is much to be done before the first curtain rises on our 24th production of these elaborate planetary workings, and Caitlin will again be serving as Mistress of the Rites to supervise the Eleusis cycle for the lodge. Contact her ahead of time for advice, and bring ideas to propose at this planning meeting if you are interested in undertaking one of the rites this year.

Crowley Classics

This article first appeared on 25th June 1933 e.v. in the London Sunday Dispatch newspaper, the second in a series of three weekly articles which Crowley arranged to sell to the paper. They were good-natured, chatty, and funny, with reminiscences from many phases of his life and some subtle autobiographical justifications for a few of his more ambiguous adventures. An editorial note introduced this article as follows: "Aleister Crowley last week described his initiation into a Secret Order, how he was bound and blindfolded, made to repeat a formidable oath before black-hooded officers, and became "a new being born into a new world." Unfortunately we have not been able to find a copy of that first article, which we would be most happy to receive if any reader can provide its text. We hope to include Crowley's concluding article for the same paper in these pages in our next issue.

I Make Myself Invisible
by Aleister Crowley
"The Worst Man in the World"

    After my initiation I seemed to myself like a savage who happens to wander into a factory of high explosives. I had to learn the laws of life all over again from the beginning.
    I always think of Mr Wells' First Men in the Moon. How to act when the fundamental conditions of life are changed? The danger of making fatal mistakes is always present.
    A necessary part of the practice of magic is the invocation of Divine and angelic beings and the evocation of blind forces, some of which are considered "evil" by the vulgar.
    Of course there are forces which are definitely malicious. It is never necessary for a magician to deal with them, except as a bacteriologist studies disease germs, to find out their nature and subdue them.
    By 1899 I had gone through seven stages of initiation. These constituted me an Adept, but accidents were still happening to me.

Temple in a London Flat

    I constructed a private temple in a flat in Chancery Lane. It was a hall of mirrors, the function of which was to concentrate the invoked forces. It contained an altar of acacia topped with gold and certain secret symbols and regalia of the Order.
    One night, after a ceremony in which a well-known analytical chemist was my leader, I locked the door and went out with him to a meal. When we returned the door was wide open, though the lock had not been forced, and the whole contents of the temple had been thrown about and lay in the wildest confusion.
    Then the fun began. We saw -- and my teacher was able to identify -- hundreds of shapes, weird "half-formed faces" which were thronging the room, marching in fantastic dance about its confines.
    These were definitely malicious forces, demons, which one had to study and conquer.
    Later, when I was transferring my apparatus to my house in Scotland, I employed two workmen to remove the mirrors. As they were working they were suddenly overcome, knocked out by unseen assailants. It took several hours to revive them.
    People passing the doorway suddenly fell down in fits. That flat remained without a tenant for years after I had left it. All this was because I had not enough experience to control the forces.
    It was at the direction of the head of the Order that I then went to Scotland, to my manor house of Boleskine, which is two or three miles from the Falls of Foyers.
    My subsidiary object -- the principal aim is too sacred to discuss -- put into simple language was to gain control over the "four great princes" of the evil of the world.
    According to the rules of magic, I built a terrace with a northern aspect and carted river sand to it.
    I worked in the breakfast-room at making the talismans which were necessary to my purpose. The sun was streaming into the room, but in vain; there was a darkness which could be felt. The demons, evil forces, had congregated round me so thickly that they were shutting off the light. It was a comforting situation. There could be no more doubt of the efficiency of the operation.
    But I went on with my work, even though I had to light a lamp -- with the sun shining brightly outside.
    The demons collected, also, in the lodge which I had built on the terrace. They were still vague shapes, half-seen faces. I got used to them.

My Dangerous Path to Power

    They had curious effects on the neighbourhood. Part of the main road from Inverness to Fort Augustus ran through my estate. Soon superstitions about the road made the natives avoid it. People refused to use it after nightfall.
    Even the tough, hard-drinking workmen from Glasgow who were employed at Foyers would go a long way round to avoid that uncanny road.
    The forces had other and worse effects. An employee (who had not touched alcohol for twenty years) suddenly got drunk and tried to murder his wife and children. This was one of many similar cases.
    One summer more than half my pack of bloodhounds died. My servants were always getting ill.
    One of the men I employed to lay down putting greens went insane and tried to murder my wife.
    I had realized, by this time, that my path to power was to be immensely difficult and fraught with danger. But I did not look back.
    I began my pilgrimage to far-distant countries. Mexico was the first. I was sent there by the head of the Order to consecrate a priest to serve the Lamp of the Invisible Light.
    In Mexico, too, I made my first experiments in acquiring invisibility. By invoking the God of Silence, Harpocrates, by the proper ritual in front of a mirror, I gradually got to the stage where my reflection began to flicker like the images of one of the old-fashioned cinemas.
    It never disappeared completely. In fact, that experiment showed me that I was on the wrong track. Success lay not in an optical disappearance, but in the power of fascination. "Having eyes, they see not."
    However that may be, I was able to walk out in a scarlet-and-gold robe with a jeweled crown on my head without attracting any attention. They could not see me.
    This was the beginning of an art which stood me in good stead in Calcutta years later. While I was walking through the native quarter at night I was set upon by robbers.
    When I saw a knife flash I thought it was beyond a joke; pinioned though I was, I managed to fire my revolver. Hundreds of natives aroused by the report rushed out to seek me, but I was able to walk unperceived through the midst of them, and make my escape.

Sacrifice in Sacred City

    My travels took me to Ceylon, where I devoted myself to Yoga.
    I took a bungalow at Kandy and was steered through the beginnings of the art. Yoga may be taught in eight words. "Sit still! Stop thinking! Shut up! Get out!" It is the learning that is difficult.
    My success with Yoga was so great that it became dangerous. For my own good I left it alone for two years, departing from Ceylon and going to India.
   A curious thing happened on one occasion. At Madura I went into a temple and sacrificed a goat. Soon after I completely cut off my trail by a sea voyage -- a great storm was raging, and I was the only person to board the ship.
    Some time afterwards I returned to India and visited some friends, who knew nothing about my activities in Calcutta.
    They told me that their servants were excited about a queer tale that I had sacrificed a goat at Madura, the most sacred city of South India.

Being Takes Human Form

    How had the natives obtained that information? They had done it by "native telegraph."
    I then went to Egypt, and -- to my intense surprise -- was summoned by the secret chiefs of the Order. I was commanded to return to England, there to reconstruct the system of organisation, as the outer form of the Order had broken up through the fall of its chief ambassador to the world "without the Veil," and to put the secrets in writing.
    I accordingly condensed and published knowledge in a periodical called The Equinox. Headquarters at this time was a studio in Victoria Street. There in our spare time we began to celebrate the rites of Eleusis.
    Some of these rites were often attended with strange results. On several occasions we saw and felt a stranger among us, but when the lights were turned higher there was no one there.
    Our ceremonies had caused a being to take human form and be seen among us.
    The success of these private rituals induced me to take the Caxton Hall for seven performances, which were open to the public. Bottomley attacked the rituals as obscene and blasphemous. He was merely reflecting in print the depravity of his own mind.

Invoking the Spirit of Mars

    A girl played the violin during the rites. She was a good violinist, but under the influence of the ceremonies, she was more; she played sublimely, like a supreme virtuoso, in the magical invocations directed upon her.
    During one ceremony in July 1909, in the Victoria Street studio, we invoked Bartzabel, the spirit of Mars.
    One of those present was a man of importance in the Admiralty, a commander whose name is too well known to mention. He asked the spirit, which had been invoked in a specially purified and consecrated man, if "nation would ever rise against nation."
    Bartzabel answered that it would. Questioned further, the spirit said that war would break out within five years, and that the nations which would be smashed would be Turkey and Germany.

Prophecy of Great War

    Within a fortnight of the end of those five years the Great War broke out.
    The naval man was an Adept of the Order, and he played a big part in the struggle. Whenever the affairs of the world reach a critical stage the Adepts always have someone behind the scenes.
    Rudolph Steiner, the man who was responsible for the defeat of Germany, was Grand Master of the O.T.O. in Austria, a semi-masonic order of which I was the Grand Master in England.
    Steiner broke away from the Order, because he was terrified at one of the ordeals he had to go through. He was thus cut off from the true magic, but he became secret advisor to Von Moltke.
    Steiner's direction resulted in Von Moltke's failing to take Paris when it was within his grasp, and that mistake cost Germany the whole war.
    Steiner had proved his inability to become a great musician and he was deceived by treacherous powers into defeating his country.

Next week I shall expose the abominations of Black Magic and show how absurd are the allegations which connect my name with those practices.

Previous Crowley Classic

from the Grady Project:

This previously unknown, unpublished poem survives in the author's typescript among the editorial archives of The Magickal Link. There are several differing typed versions, but the variations have more to do with the spacing of the words on the page than with alternate wording in the poem.

The Black Messiah

Within the Colosseum roars
    the restless Roman mob
Howling for the blood of Christians
    driven forth with jeer and probe.
Shift the scene a dozen centuries
    to northern Europe land;
See the Christians prick the pagans
    as they search for Nimir's brand;
Hear the righteous, feel the struggle,
    know the horror of the thought
Of the swelling horde of innocent
    that are for slaughter caught.
Caught to satisfy the thirst of those
    who ride the church as wain,
Though the Christians died as martyrs yet
    the witches burned in vain.

Be ye not deceived,
Still those sobs within your throat,
Let not your hearts be grieved,
Soldiers of the Mighty Goat!

This ritual that mocks the church
    with incantations of the Mass
But opens pathways to the search
    for knowledge old, and not of crass.
For we who are to Lilith born
    remain in homage to our Queen;
The Old Religion reared again
    will batter down all walls between,
To conquer all that men can know
    and raise again our rule supreme;
O'er all the nations of the world
    the Witchcult will regain its dream!
And those who died upon the pyre
    will take their honors from the fire.

by Grady McMurtry
11/20/40

Previous Grady Project Next Grady Project

from the Library Shelf

Thomas Tymme, rector of Hasketon in Suffolk from 1575 until his death in 1620, prepared (or at least planned) a translation of John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica from the Latin alchemical anthology entitled Theatrum Chemicum, which had been assembled by Lazarus Zetzner and originally published from Ursel in 1602. The following text is Tymme's introductory material for the Monas, which survives in a transcription from the author's manuscript made by Elias Ashmole, published in 1963 e.v. by the New Bodleian Library of Oxford University. For the present edition orthography has been regularized (with the letters "i," "j," "s," "u," and "v" rendered in the modern manner) and some abbreviated words have been expanded, but otherwise the spelling and punctuation are here rendered according to the original. Elipses are indicated in a few places with three dots, where Ashmole was unable to make out Tymme's handwriting.

A
LIGHT in Darkness
Which illumineth for all the Monas
Hieroglyphica of the famous and profound
Dr John Dee
discovering Nature's closet and revealing
the true Christian secrets of Alchemy

by THOMAS TYMME,
Professor of Divinity

IAMBLICHUS, Adhortat. ad Philos. cap. xxi:
De Pythagoreis sine lumine ne loquitor.

A Light in Darkness
by Thomas Tymme

Epistle Dedicatorie

To the right worshipfull his singular
good patron Thomas Baker Esquire
Thomas Tymme wisheth health
and prosperity in this world
and in the lyfe to come
perfect felicity in
Jesus Christ.

The rich & golden Jewell, which the famous & profound Dr. Dee thought not unfit the royall Majestie of Maximilian the Emperour, expressed in the Latin Tongue, I deemed convenient for your worship in the English; albeit I know you sifficiently learned in that other, specially for this reason, That in the perusing this aenigmaticall Monas, you might more easily attaine the marrow of the Authors meaning, the bond of a Tongue, not soe much in use with you as the Vulgar, being broken & layd open. For the Author of set purpose hath endeavoured (according to the usuall manner of Philosophers skilfull in adeptive Philosphy) to be harsh in stile using terms of Art to you unknowne, & words of Hebrew & Greek, & also obscure in the matter it selfe . . . of great consequence. In this Hieroglyphicall Monas of he hath comprehended the whole Science & practice of Alchemie, in which one Figure is set before you the Character of the 7 Planets, and therein also a misticall signification of the 7 Mattalls, whereof two are perfect, & the other imperfect, yet able to be perfected by Art & Nature. The which worke of incerted, & closely couched in the Figure, as in reading the Process you shall with diligent observacion understand, & the more easily if you compaire therewith that which I have inferred and added, to the end of this his Monas.
His whole purpose & drift is, to give unto Mercury

the mastery in Alchimy, & the alpha

in the worke, & for this cause his Monas Hierogliphicall

hath the first in the top & the last in the foote, the Cross going betweene, which signifies the dejecting and humiliacion of Mercury

before his Exaltacion.
    The causes of such Aenigmata, close Characters, and obscure riddles in the writings of the Philosophers of this kind, are principally two; first to exercise the witts of the more wise, for whome these Traditions & Monuments are left in writing, who take no delight in things neerest to common sense, contemning vile things, & soaring aloft with the Eagle to attaine divine Science.
    The second cause is the Contempt of Science in the Vulgar sort, who rashly reject and condemne whatsoever they understand not, utterly ignorant if things most excellent: in whome this Proverbe is verified. Scientia non habet Inimicum nisi Ignorantem. He then shal be greatly overseene, that publisheth secret Mysteries to the Multitude. Yea he shall breake the Celestial Seals, who shall make the Secrets of Nature & Art common. It is folly to give an Ass Lettice, when Thistles are more fit, & it is madness to set a looking glass before a Woolfe, seeing there is danger to him that offers it. Secrets are no longer to be reputed Secrets, when the Multitude is acquainted with them. Not without cause therefore God speaking out of the bush to Esdras (as he had done before to Moses) gave him this Comandment saying, The first Bookes that thou hast written publish openly, that both the worthy & unworthy may read them, but keep the 70 last, that thou maist give them to the wise among the People, for in them is the veyne of Understanding, the fountaine of Wisdome, and the River of Knowledge. And it was grave & sage Councell which Libavius gave to Tritemius in this Percept, Use secrecy & put not forth the dove before his tyme.
    My purpose in this dedication is not to procure you into the Laborinth of Alchimists practice, whereinto all that have entered with unwashen hands have hurt themselves, and then falsely exclaimed against the divine Science, as meere Sophisticall & deceiptfull; but rather to allure you, to like that which my slefe doth love, & yet not doating as Narcissus did with the shaddow. The speculation . . . before the dexterity of the art, (which I know to be like a quick con . . .) will be a fit object for your recreation at your leisure, & far unfit for a mooddie & gross braine.
    My labour & paines herein bestowed in translating and collecting that which I have added, taken from the monuments of many profound Philosophers both speculative & practicall, together with giving to each instrument belonging to this Science his lively Limnes, due proportion & naturall colours, so far as my simple skill could extend . . . but a rude Novice in this facilty, in some sort to be equaled with the care and paines of those which travell to Peru & China for Gold, I wholy dedicate to your Worship with hearty good will, having in my power no better thing to give you then a Schollers guift, which I offer to you (my worshipfull & most precious friend in the world) wishing to you Thassus bonorum & the true and most perfect Elixir, both in his lyfe and the life to come.

Your worships devoted in fidelity
and kindnes during Life
THOMAS TYMME

The Forespeech to the Reader

    Adam, before his fall, was by God endowed with such excellent knowledge in naturall Philosophie, that is to say, with the understanding of the secrets of nature & the naturall reasons of all things, that he gave to all the Creatures of God their proper names, agreeing with their nature and kind. And albeit the prefection of that knowledge (as a special ornament of the Soule) was much weakened by his fall, yet had he so much light thereof, that he was the first founder and inventor of Arte. For his posterity building upon that first foundacion & by experience and advantage of his Invention, & perfecting that which was but rude in the beginning, erected two Tables of Stone, wherein they engraved their naturall Philosophie, not in letters (which were not then known) but in Hieroglyphicall characters, to the end that the presage, concerning the general Deluge to come, which they had learned from their Grandfather Adam, might be known unto posterity, that if it were possible they might prevent the perill.
    Noah after the flood found one of these Tables in Armenia at the foot of the Mountain Arrarat; wherein was shewed the order and course of the superiour Firmament, of the Planets, and of the inferiour Globe. At length this universall knowledge in naturall Philosophie, particulerly drawne into sundry parts, was in force deminished, in such sort that such separacion made one an Astronomer, another a Magitian, a third a Cabilist, and a fourth an Alchemist.
    Magic is an Art, whereby men came to the knowledge of Elements, of their bodyes, & of their hidden properties, vertues & opperacions. That Vulchanicall Abram Tubalcain the Astrologian & greate Arithmatitian went out of Aegipt, into the land of Chanaan, by whose meanes Aegipt wan greate fame. And Jacob had learned some rule Magicall, to make his Uncle Labans sheepe spotted, and party colloured, albeit almighty God furthered & blessed the Invencion & the meanes.
    The Cabala, out of hidden and misticall sense, seemeth to make a way for men to come unto God. For as the Art of Magic, (I meane not Magic Diabolicall, of Necromanticall) is full of naturall secrets: so the Cabala is full of Divine Misteries, foretelling many things by the nature of things persent and to come.
    The greatest worthy among mortal men, Moses, was brought up in the Schooles of the Aegiptians at the cost & expences of Pharaos Daughter, to learne these Scyences, & the learned & excellent prophet Daniell, in the doctrin & wisdome of the Chaldeans, became a perfect Cabalist, the wisdome of Gods spirit dwelling in him, whereby he expounded these misticall words Mene Mene Tekel Upharzin. The tradition of this Cabalistall art, was much in use among the ancient Sages, whereby they learned the true & right knowledge of God, and walked the more firmely in his lawes & comandements.
    This extraordinarie wisdome was given by God to the Priests which walked in his Commandements, & it was the manner of the Persians, to admit no man to the Royall Throane but him which was Sophus, both in deede and name, and thereof it came that their kings were called Sophi, that is to say Wise. Such were those Sophi and Persian Magi, which came from the East to seeke Christ.
    The Aegiptians excelling in this naturall Magic & Philosophie, thought it necessary for their Preists to learn the same wisdome wherein they profited so greately, that they were had in admiracion of all their neighbour Countrys round about them, and for this cause Hermes, who lived about Moses tyme, was truly called Trismegistus because he was a King, a Preist & a Prophet, a Magus, & Sophus, a famous Aegiptian Philosopher, excellent in knowledge of naturall things.
    Alchemy is a Science, whereby the principles, causes, properties and passions of all Mettalls are throughly knowne & discovered and by which those Mettalls that are imperfect and corrupted, are altered and changed into true & perfect Gold. That this is no fable nor deciptfull Imaginacion, is thus proved,
    Every thing which is indigested, and ordeyned to be digested, & every impure thing, and able to be purified, may be fully digested and purified. But certaine imperfect Mettalls are digested & impure as Jupiter and Saturn , and other some are only impure, as Venus and Mars , and are able perfectly to be digested.
    Therefore they may be perfectly & fully digested & purified.
    The Major & Minor are plainely proved by the saying of the Philospher in the 4 chap. of Metheors, concerning the Digestion of Opsesis and Epsesis, and likewise in the 2 chap. of Generacion and Corrupcion.
    Againe the certainety of this Science is thus proved.
    Those things which have conveniency & likenes in the Matter may easily be altered and changed one into another. But Mettalls are such. Therefore they be easily altered and changed, one into the other. And so by consequence Mettalls imperfect may be made perfect.
    Also by a third Argument thus. Whatsoever is in the halfe parte forward in mocion, to take any forme, may be brought to the end of that mocion, if it be not hindered. But imperfect Mettalls are in the halfe part forward to take the form of the perfect which is the mocion to the right end. Therfore they may be brought to the right end.
    In regard to the assurance to this Scyence the famous Philosopher Trismegistus before remembered wrote thus. True it is without a lye, certaine & most true, by the affinity of Unity. That which is superiour is like to that which is inferiour, & that which is inferiour is like to that which is superiour, because all numbers consist of Unites, for the working of many miracles of one thing. Do not all things flow from Unity through the goodness of One? Nothing that is varying, and in discord can be joyned to Unity, but the like, that by the simplicity, aptacion, & fitnes of one, it may bring forth fruite; what else springeth from Unity, but the Ternary it selfe. The Unarie is simple, the Binarie is compound, & the Ternarie is reduceable to the simplicity of unity. His father is the Sun, his Mother is the Moone. The Wind carrieth the seede in his Wombe, the Earth is the Nourse. Thou shalt seperate the Earth from the Fire, the thick from the thin, and the Ternary being now brought to it selfe with witt, it assendeth upward with greate sweetenes, and retorneth againe to Earth & adorned with virtue & greate beauty, & so it receiveth superiour & inferiour force, & it shalbe from henceforth potent and orient in the brightnes of Unity, to produce all apt nomber, & all obscurity shall flee away. Thus Hermes.
    Therefore whosoever he be that will attaine to the Scyence of the greate worke in Alchimy, let him well consult & view this figure following, that he may bringe the Ternarie to unitye.

The Unarie, simple in it selfe, is no number, but yet from it all nomber ariseth. The Binarie, going from Unitie, is the first compound number, because it is impossible there should be two beginnings. Number standeth upon order and measure. And order cannot be without number and measure, and measure standeth upon number and order. The Unitie here, and the Ternarie, will not admit number, but putting off all multitude, having in them naturall a most simple purity, doe consist in the first degree.
Pythagoras saith, that there is one Essence in every thing which GOD hath created, which Essence dyeth not, untill the day of Judgment. This is that Essence whiche is in every thing & in every place, whiche the Philosphers call Mercury

.
There are two Mercuries used in the worke of Alchemy. The one is the Male, not flying which is the Philosophers Mercury

, the other is the Female or common Mercury

whiche hath wings and flyeth. Of the flieing Mercury

Hermes writeth thus: My Son, extract out of the shining Beame, his Shaddow, for the Beame is the moysture & Female, & the Shaddow is the drynes, hidden in moystures, & is the Male, which was begotten by nature before the Female.
As there are 2 sorts of Mercury

so are there 2 sorts of Sulphur in every Metall, the one externally burning; the other internall, not burning. The internall which burneth not, is of the substantiall composicion of Quicksilver. This is seperable, the other not so. This Alchemical Sulphur

is not united to Quicksliver, & therefore when it is seperated, the Quicksilver remaineth still pure, whiche would not so remaine, if it were united thereunto.
The Philosophers have called that the Body which according to naturall power, may be fixed: & with continuall perseverance, can constantly abide the tryall of fire. And they have called that the Soule, which according to her naturall power, hath no stedfastnes or perseverance to abide the tryall of the fire, but is lifted up and fleeth from the fire. Also the have called that Spirit, which being subtiled. dissolved, or moulten with fire, according to the natural power thereof, hath ability to resoule the body with the Soule into vapour or of reteyning the Soule with the Body to the fiery tryall, if it vapour not. Because the Spirit when it shalbe equall, maketh the Body to reteyne the Soule, and when it shalbe more, or stronger, it maketh the Soule to depart from the Body, and so it forsaketh the Body, for that without the Spirit the Soule terrieth not with the Body, neither is it seperated from the Body because it is the Bond of them both. And thus this one thing Mercury

is Body, Soule, and Spirit in divers respects.
    The Male is more hot then the Female, because heate is attributed to the Agent. And yet Sulphur (which is the Male) is not the principal Agent; but a hidden minerall vertue exhesting in Quicksilver (the digesting heate of the Myne going betweene) is the prinicpall extrinsecall Agent with the Caelestiall Bodyes, and maketh Sulphur with his heate as an Instrument. And Sulphur moveth Quicksilver, as the matter proper to it selfe, for Generacion by the same Mocion, with the which it is moved of the first agents. As Nature worketh effectually allone in this manner, so much more effectually, when Art is joyned with Nature. For Art prepareth for Nature, & ministreth unto it the matter in the last preparacion, and Nature prepareth and disposeth for her selfe unto the end with the helpe of Art, & afterwards bringeth in the forme, even Golde Chemicall, better then that which is simply naturall, because it is mixed with a burning Sulphur, corrupting and washing. Nature (without Arte) hath congealed & hardened some things, with weake & faint heate; & hath left them halfe digested as Leade and Tynne, and some things it hath hardened with superfluous heate as Iron & Copper. Some things it hath hardened with a sufficient temperate heate, as Silver. Some things it hath not hardened, by reason of the want of heat, & for the want & seperacion of Silver, as Quicksilver. And some things it hath hardened with a convenient temperature, as Gold. Imperfect mettalls are in fact Gold & Silver, but their sicknes & imperfeccions do hide their properties, whiche imperfecctions & sicknesses proceed of these causes.
    The Leprousy of Iron cometh of the corrupcion of Choller, turned into the nature of Mellancholly, whiche is called Leonia. The Leprousy of Brass cometh of corrupcion of blood, turned to the nature of Mellancholly, which is called Allopetia. The corrupcion of Tynne cometh of the corrupcion of Fleume, turned to the nature of Mellancholly, whiche is called Thegia. The Leprousy of Lead cometh of the corrupcion of Mellancholly alone, whiche is called Eliphantia. All this Leprousies come by the mixture of divers Sulphers corrupting them, whiche was in their Mynes.
    Therefore as a sick man taking medicine is made sounde, only by alteracion, and remaineth a man formally as before; so mettalline bodies, by the true medicine altering them, are made perfect, and become pure & good Gold and Silver. For mineralls are cured with their Mineralls even as men are cured with Vegitables.
    This noble Science is the way to caelstiall & supernaturall things, by which the ancient Wisemen were led from the worke of Arte & Nature to understande, even by reason the wonderfull powre of God in the creacion of all things: & their finall purificacion by alteracion through fire in the day of doome. At whiche tyme GOD will seperate all the uncleane faeces, & corrupsion that is in the foure Elements & bring them to a Christalline cleerenes. After the which there shalbe no more corrupcion, but they shall indure for ever. For we must not think that all things whiche GOD hath created in these lower parts, shall utterly perish in that consumpcion by fire: Noe, none of them, no more then the incorruptible heaven. But GOD by his power will change all things & make them Christalline, & the 4 Elements shalbe perfect, simple, & fixed in them selves, and they shalbe all a Quintessence. Demonstracion of these things is made here on earthe by this honest & holy arte. For whatsoever God hath created may be brought to a Christalline cleerenes, and the Elements gathered together into a simple fixed substance; whiche being done noe man can alter them, nor the fire it selfe burne or change them, but they shall continue perpetually in Eternity.
    Thus we see, that the heavenly contemplacion in this Scyence is no comon ascending, nor for every mans pitch, neither is it to be gotten of them whiche are carreid upward with one winge only, but is familier to very few, namely to them whiche have seriously reduced them selves to Unitie. Many go about this thing, but they doe not rightly understand this Ternarie. For every operacion of wonders consisting in the lymitts of Nature, descendeth from unity by the binary, into the Ternarie; and yet not before such tyme as it ariseth from the Ternarie, by order of degrees into Simplicity,
    Seacret and Caelestiall is this Adepted Philosophy, wherein whosoever desireth to have true knowledge, the same must be contemplative and solitary, free from common tumult. The Spirit of GOD doth breath where it listeth, illumineth where he wills, and whome he protecteth & shaddoweth with his divine grace, he leadeth into all knowledge of truth. Let him therefore which shall receive such knowledge, give thanks to the lord GOD; & let him be answerable to that his knowledge in the deeds of Charity & in Christian lyfe, that GOD may be glorified in such Scyence, & the worker of good works receive the reward of mercy, even eternall felicity in the kingdome of heaven. Amen.

A Light in Darkness

For the better understanding of these close words & obscure figures in the Monas following, I thought good to deliver this short exposition folowing:

    By the word Ternarie is meant (as I conjecture) the first matter of the Philosophers stone, which are there in.
    By the Quaternarie is meant the 4 Elements: Water, Earth, Fire & Aier.
    By the Quinarie is understoode Quintessence.
    By the Septimarie is understood the 7 heavenly Planets: Sun Moon Saturn Jupiter Mars Venus & Mercury by whiche are meant Gold, Silver, Lead, Tynn, Iron, Copper & Mercury or Quicksilver.
    By the Binarie is understoode common Quick Silver, whiche is not the Mercury of the Philosophers, and therefore being without that Mercury it is rejected as a false Medicine, because it swarveth from Unity.
    By the Octonarie is understoode the 8 parts of Alchemy: Calcinacion, Dissolucion, Conjunccion, Putrifaccion, Seperacion, Coagulacion, Sublimacion, & Fixacion.
    By the Denarie is meant the Multiplicacion of Gold & Silver, by the prefection of the Medicine, from 1 to 10, from 10 to 100, & so by the Number to a Number Infinate by Arithmeticall proporcion.

    Concerning the Figures in this Monas you shall easily enough understand, none of the which are hid & darke, but that in the 222 pages of the Latin Theatrum, wherein he describes by an Alligory, the whole Practise of Alchimy, calling the Philosophers Stone in the first beginning of the worke Adam mortall, but in the end and perfection of the work, passing through the foure Elements into a Quintessence, he calleth it Adam immortall, because it will never decay, but purgeth & transformeth all imperfect bodies or Mettalls. The Colateralls of the Figures are certaine Circulations of Circumstances in the worke.
    That firgure in the 223 page of the Latin Theatrum signifies the Proportions of Mixtures. That in the 228 of the Latin Theatrum representeth the Athanor of the Philosophers, wherein the Glass with the Matter is brought to the Fire. But this Athanor or furnace is there set with the top downeward, to deceive the Ignorant.
    Thus briefly I have delivered my Conjecture. If any can ayme more neere the Marke, I refuse not to learne.

---- THOMAS TYMME of Hasketon

Previous from the Library Shelf Next from the Library Shelf

Thelema Lodge Events Calendar for March 2003 e.v.

3/2/03	New Moon in Pisces 6:35 PM
3/2/03	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/4/03	Mardi Gras parade in Berkeley 2:22PM
3/5/03	Heptarchia Mystica, Enochian with Charles 8PM in the library	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/9/03	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/12/03	Magical forum 8PM: "Spirit is not a Substance" a philosophical enquiry with Nathan in the library	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/15/03	OTO initiations, call to attend	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/16/03	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/18/03	Full Moon in Virgo 2:35 AM
3/19/03	Heptarchia Mystica, Enochian with Charles 8PM in the library	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/20/03	Vernal Equinox ritual and feast in Horus Temple 7:00PM	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/21/03	Pathworking with Paul 8PM in Horus Temple	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/23/03	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/24/03	Section II reading group with Caitlin: J. Stephen's "The Crock Of Gold" 8PM in the library	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/30/03	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/31/03	Planning meeting for the Rites of Eleusis in the library 8:00PM	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.