ANECDOTES

Here we present a collection taken from a period spanning over thirty years, of anecdotes, comments, poetry, photographs and artwork, and Diary excerpts, by O.'.A.'.A.'. members, with their permission.

 During January 2013, the our Lodge received their friend P as a visitor. Now P is currently experimenting with a whole host of pharmaceuticals from his doctor to combat his depression and firmly believes that pills are the way forward to cure him of his ailments. As such his brilliant mind is often dulled by medication, and he is usually either distant or depressed.
My Greatly Honoured Brother G. and myself decided that he was the perfect candidate to imbibe some Sun/Jupiter Tincture as created by our Greatly Honoured and Highly Esteemed Brother L. Upon hearing of P’s imminent arrival at the Lodge we filled a glass with water and added ice, a slice of lemon and four drops of the said tincture. We had it on the table ready for him when he arrived as more often than not he refuses a drink of any kind, and when he does it is only ever water he accepts.

P came in and sat down and we told him that the water was his. He was in quite a heavy and distant mood upon arrival and eventually he started sipping his water. Not long after his first few sips his demeanour changed somewhat and his mood lifted. He marvelled over the glass of water stating that it was ‘restaurant quality’ and became very jolly, much to our delight.
P then went to get some shopping and came back with a bottle of champagne, so we cooked him a steak dinner and drank the champagne with him. It was all very of the moment and the entire day/evening was unplanned. P really didn’t expect to be eating steak and drinking champagne when he first entered the Lodge… and neither did we.

Now P has always described himself as an atheist, and spirituality is not usually a topic in his repertoire. On this particular evening after ingesting the Sun/Jupiter tincture his topic of conversation became more and more spiritual and he began asking us (and himself) questions regarding such matters. He became very open from previously being closed and proudly stated that he was an agnostic and not the atheist to which he had identified with for some many years. My Greatly Honoured Brother G and myself who had also imbibed some tincture thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and pulled out all the stops to make a conducive ambiance for such talk with the aid of candles, incense and gentle music. The hours rolled on by and at some point close to 1am, P noticed the clock and was astonished at how much time had elapsed since his afternoon visit. “Time does funny things around here” he noted and left shortly afterwards looking happy, mentally expanded, and feeling ever so slightly confused by the time-warp that he had been privy to. Without a doubt the Sun/Jupiter tincture was the perfect medicine for P and there will always be a ‘restaurant quality’ glass of water awaiting him on every visit from now on.

- From the Magickal Records of Greatly Honoured Brother I and Brother G.

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".....One man's story of his exploration into the unconscious realms on the Quest for the Truth, that same search of those same realms that the mystics undertook many centuries ago, to apprehend directly the Will of God.....

....I can remember where I was before I was born. It was light, peace and harmony were implicit in the light. Everything was light, brilliant light with a pinkish glow. All was joy, peace and love. With time - or was it time? - I became curious, not about anything in particular, just curious: there was a slight change in attitude among those around me, I was somehow different and as a result something wonderful was about to happen to me.

 Some "time" later I was called to a meeting of those in a superior position to me. I was told by them that I had been granted my wish. I was delighted, I couldn't wait, and I didn't have to wait long. My friends escorted me to the place of entry; we were all very happy at this glorious event.

 Suddenly I was falling, falling, as if I was going down a well; down, down I went, and with my passage came uncertainty and hard upon uncertainty came fear; and as I went down and down I became darker and more solid, and with this darkness and solidity came pain: and from this agony was bred stark lonely isolated terror and then a cry, a scream of hopeless despair.

 Then unconsciousness, silence pervaded by occasional bouts of discomfort; endless blurred awakenings, crying for I knew not what which was assuaged by I knew not what. I sensed objects, some were pleasurable, others felt hostile. Endless endless sleep and crying, sometimes it was so bad that I was lost to this world and was blessed by a return to my home in the light with my loved friends, but my memory of this dimmed and what happened there I cannot remember.

 The shapes I saw  became more and more distinct, and more sharply defined in the way I felt about them. I needed some and not others, I did not know why but the presence of some shapes felt better than others; and I learned to draw attention to myself by doing different things and soon I learned which actions they responded to best. It somehow felt nice to do the things they wanted  me to do, it felt better and I liked the strange warmth their approval gave me. I did more and more; I did not know what I was doing, I just had an instinct that certain actions gained the approval I needed.

 One day I found myself crawling under a table and I walked out the other side. My mother and grandmother were delighted, two glorious comfortable shapes that were so happy, and I was delighted that they approved. The sounds I was making produced waves of delight. I learned quickly.

 Soon I was walking and talking - and I grew up a perfectly normal child except for one thing, I could remember my past lives. Somehow the amnesia that attends the trauma of the pain and horror of childbirth had passed me by. I could remember everything.

 I was about nine when I mentioned this to someone and realised for the first time that I was alone in having this memory, and that it was not just because of a taboo that no-one talked about heaven or their past existences; it was simply that they could not remember. I was worried a little by this and decided it would be prudent not to talk about it again to anyone.

The older I became the more I was aware of the inevitability of my own death. The acute awareness of this inevitability was at times almost hysterical. I had to know what existed behind this veil of terror. I had to know whether my memories from before I was born were true. I felt that I could do nothing until I had the answer. I needed to know for myself not at second hand, only then could I begin to exist as a human being.

Without the knowledge of what happened when I died I felt that I could not begin to live. If as in Hinduism we live an almost endless series of lives then I must understand the meaning of this mystery. If as the Christians believe that one only has one life then I must behave myself and live according to Christian principles. If life was meaningless and death was annihilation and the world a pointless orb of meaninglessness wheeling its way through pointlessness for all eternity then I may as well kill myself and have done with it for after all the few years we have on this planet didn't seem worth extending one minute if it was without justification. I didn't know it at the time but this was the position of the Gnostic - I needed the direct knowledge of God, if He existed. One cannot know how to live unless one knows what is beyond death. All the man-created laws and all morality are meaningless if life itself has no meaning. These and other ideas preoccupied my mind as I searched through the literature.

I made a study of all the available psychological authors and it seemed to me that each one was projecting his own particular neurosis upon the world and seeking to find ease from that neurosis by projecting it onto others. “As a man is, so he sees.” Psychology deals with the refuse of the mind, it does not deal with nor accept that most diseases of the mind originate in the soul and should therefore be treated as a spiritual problem. A much older approach and to my mind more consistent with the psychic archetypes is Astrology. Where psychology works by the tenet that there is something wrong with the mind, and therefore engenders guilt requiring expiation (by the psychologist), the astrological approach states categorically that there is no guilt, that life events are governed by the stars and we are helpless victims.

I could never believe that a God created the universe and populated it with inferior beings to watch them live and die and suffer for all eternity and yet this was at the root of all religions. What a ludicrous state of affairs and what a miserable sadistic stupid deity. I could never accept this and so set out on the journey of finding out for myself what was the true meaning of life. I began my study of Astrology around 1960, and a little later I started on magic. I worked the Greater Key of Solomon and then the Goetia; this led me to the kaballah and other late medieval systems. I studied Hebrew Greek and Arabic kaballah but settled on Hebrew as it was more comprehensive than the other two. During this period I included the methods of Franz Bardon and the concentration techniques of Mouni Sadhu in my armoury of study....

I did the concentration exercises where one practices visualizing something, say, a rose, until one can see it solid in space and smell its perfume. I developed this technique to moving objects until I reached a point during normal life where if I visualized something it was immediately there, which was very disconcerting. I gave up the method after standing at a crossroads one day and idly thinking “what if there was an accident?” and I looked at the cars approaching me and automatically visualized an accident involving those cars, and it really started to happen. I slammed myself back to normal and everything went back to normal. I realized I could not control my ability to visualize and change reality in all common dimensions so I gave up the practice. I do not believe there is a man on the planet who could sustain it, control would have to be 100% and nobody can give all their blood to the Cup of Babalon, she will do it to you anyway, and that too is a serious headache. I limited myself to the visualization and assumption of God-forms, which was impressive enough without making them solid. I worked the Abramelin system for the prescribed 18 months and acquired the knowledge and conversation of my Holy Guardian Angel and got very scorched in the process! I made a study of all the forms of Mysticism to find out which seemed to have a complete method of meditation that would provide an answer to the Question. Around 1965 I went to work on Yoga principally Pranayama and Hatha yoga. In a couple of years I got quite proficient. I decided to apply the methods of yoga to the investigation of Hebrew Kaballah....

Hindu mysticism seemed complete and yet it seemed so disorganised and full of Gods and Goddesses with names that seemed alien and incomprehensible. After some study of the systems in Hinduism I decided that they were unsuitable to my western materialistic mind. In the end I settled on the Hebrew Kabbalah and its Tree of life. As it seemed complete logical and workable so I accordingly set to work to understand it. Unbeknown to myself I had become a Gnostic to know the truth for myself. The Hebrew Kabbalah and its spiritual magical ritual is a romance of creation concealing within itself all possibility and within its symbol system all the possibilities of events that humanity is capable of. All the Gods and Goddesses that have ever been dreamt of are contained within the ten basic concepts on the tree of life that is the Kabbalah mandala. Here was something I could really get my teeth into. The methods used are mainly meditation with a system of ritual that is designed to balance all the different factors of the mind to stop one from going totally insane....

...I will keep the technical side of the method to a minimum and concentrate on the psychological effects of prolonged working with the Tree of Life and the magical powers the student may expect as he is initiated by the spheres on the Tree of Life. The authorities I used were Dione Fortune’s “Mystical Kabbalah” for theory and Israel Regardie’s “Middle Pillar” for practical instruction.

I read and re-read these two works, lived ate and breathed them, until they were imprinted upon my psyche.

“The Middle Pillar”, for those who are not familiar with the book, is a series of practical instructions which are an expansion of the 22 papers of the Order of the Golden Dawn.

It is recommended that one keeps a diary of all the work done and any results noticed. This is a requirement of all initiatory magical work. It allows one to earth the magical experiences and inhibits them from running around in one’s mind afterwards. This earthing is important as it stops one from drifting between the planes and becoming ineffectual on all of them. It is also fascinating to look back and see how one has changed as the magical work proceeds.

One begins by balancing one’s psyche by the daily practice of the “Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram”. The method is in the “middle Pillar” and in many other occult books. The effect of continued practice of the pentagram is to integrate and balance the mind emotionally and intellectually. Without this preliminary work, exposing the mind to the power of the Middle Pillar could be dangerous and cause unbalancing obsessions.

The ground plan of Qabala is the Tree of Life. This has been described severally as a map of the soul, of the universe, and of the self. From the magician’s point of view it is map of experience that tells him where he is at any given point and is invaluable as an aid to stop him going completely mad as the mystical-magical process begins to cause stresses in his psyche.

The Middle Pillar instructs one to perform a simple 6 – 3 – 6 – 3 breathing exercise while relaxing and visualising the spheres on the middle pillar starting with Kether above the head. The results experienced by the breathing exercises are very interesting as the amount of time given to them is increased. One lies relaxed, feet together concentrating on getting the rhythm right and keeping it that way. Quite suddenly one is aware of a gentle rippling sensation that according to Regardie should play around the abdomen but in my experience covered the whole of my body. This is followed by a feeling that one is a source of enormous power, or a gigantic storage battery of energy. This happens quite suddenly and is apt to disorientate one somewhat causing the heart to beat faster and thus destroying the concentration. However with repeated experiments one “gets used” to this sudden influx of power and learns to relax through it. With continued effort one reaches a sage where one is so relaxed that if one were required to move suddenly it would be found impossible to move at all! This point is followed by a feeling of falling away and deeper relaxation. I felt somewhat afraid at this point as I felt I was losing control of things so I decided to stop at this point of relaxation and begin to work upon the middle pillar of the Tree of Life.

I visualised gently the Sphere of Light above my head and went through the attributes of Kether – all very gentle. After about four attempts I found I could see it in my mind’s eye and I vibrated the God-Name Eheieh powerfully. I found that the name vibrated through my whole body causing every nerve to tingle – a very pleasant sensation. Then suddenly, as if a light of immense brilliance had been turned on, there it was, a brilliant white Sun above my head – it was really there! A white sun radiating love, light and wisdom into my mind. It was really there, it was more real than I was. It took me several experiments to become accustomed to this power. I found that as the centre above my head lit up, the Malkuth centre between the ankles lit up by reflex. The experience was delightful, it was pure ecstasy.

At this point my eagerness was such that I suffered from "The Lust of Result" and it was many months before I could awaken the centre again. During this period one has just got to slog on with the exercise not wanting anything from it - just do it.

Eventually the light above the head came back and I drew it down to the Daath centre at the nape of the neck. It is very difficult to describe these experiences in terms that can be understood by one who has not undertaken the work. Upon hitting the Daath Centre the Yesod Sphere exploded in sympathy. My attention was drawn to this centre, the effects were most interesting. There was a feeling at the base of my spine of great relaxation - of falling - then suddenly of immense pulsating power, like a snake uncoiling and with its uncoiling tremendous pulsating energy, like orgasm. The experience was pure delight and far superseded any other pleasure I had ever experienced in my life.

With repeated experiments I learned not to "grab at" the pleasure experienced but to ignore it and get on with the work.

As I got used to handling the power generated by these exercises I began to examine the symbols associated with the centres while performing the meditation. During normal consciousness the symbols on the Tree of Life appear dead and unconnected but during the hyperconscious states of meditation the symbols become living entities. One is aware of Malkuth as oneself. The enormous power generated makes one negative to it and the attitude taken up automatically is a feminine experience. One literally changes sex and takes on a feminine Goddess form so that the energy flows through the Malkuth personality unimpeded. This is not a contrived experience but a natural reaction to the power invoked. One becomes negative to receive the divine bridegroom of Tiphareth. I found that when the divine bridegroom of Tiphareth descended to Yesod and the bride ascended and united with the divine male it caused every other male and female deity to unite on the whole Tree of Life causing a state of orgasmic bliss that cannot be compared with anything in mundane experience.

During this whole period my mundane consciousness and personality were undergoing great changes caused by this massive influx of power. It is said that it is important to keep the two states separate and now I learned why! When one is practising as intensely as I was during this period if one so much as thinks of the centres they awaken and this can be very inconvenient in ordinary life....

Although during the meditations I experienced the great bliss of transcendental vision my mundane personality was under unbelievable stresses. I had invoked the powers of the universe which are damn near perfect into a system – myself – which was far from perfect. I was full of conditioning and ideas that simply were not true. The whole of my mind’s complexes were turned upside down. I went mad but managed to appear sane to the rest of the world. The stress my mind was under defies imagination. I continued the work remorselessly. I wanted to know the truth and nothing else mattered. During the crisis period in meditation I had come to a point again and again but was afraid to cross. Those who know this state will recognise it for what it is – the Abyss.

...I had reached the Tiphareth centre. I had lain in the harmony of eternity and drunk of the dew of immortality and by God now I was paying for it by mental torture. Again and again in meditation I reached the edge of the abyss and again and again I drew back in terror, my consciousness on the edge of annihilation. It felt as if were I to go over the edge I would be destroyed forever. Each time I returned to normal consciousness I hated myself for my weakness and vowed countless times that next time I would let it happen, I would go and die, and each time my vow was broken my humiliation was insufferable. Finally I decided that it did not really matter anyway because sooner or later I was going to die so why not now as in a few years time. I prepared myself by the pentagram and hexagram and took up the breathing after an hour and a half of meditation gradually taking myself through Godname after Godname. I reached the edge of the Abyss. I was filled with terror again, the kind of terror that one can never get used to. I backed away from the edge again and again but I was determined that this was the time and I would not return empty handed. I looked into the inexpressible horror, called out the name of my Angel and let go. I was thrown, literally thrown, from one state to another. I was suddenly beyond time and space, the past and the future were one. I knew all my past lives and all future lives, my brain full as if it was burning up, such was the nuclear blast of ecstasy that file it. In that moment I was eternity and knew all things. This was the final truth that I had been searching for all my life. Tears poured down my face, tears of relief, tears of joy – of love. There was a purpose to existence, man was supreme and in that moment I could see it all.

How much time I existed across the Abyss, I do not know.  I was catapulted back as fast as I had entered it. I was aware that if I had remained a moment longer my brain would have burned up. It was strange but I could actually smell a strong scent of burning in my physical nostrils.

I returned with an awareness of my destiny, of my past and future, and was confident that in that mind-blasting experience I had seen God. After this experience it became much easier to integrate my psyche. Half the rubbish had been burned out by the experience. I felt childlike. Though I felt I had to relearn everything I knew that everything I had been taught by parents, environment, even experience was rubbish because it was all oriented from one lifetime’s point of view, but I lived forever and I knew it. I was as a child – a child of eternity and I had to learn the rules. I thought at the time that this would take forever but was amazed to find that the “Rules” of existence were natural, only man lives by unnatural rules....

I now know the answers to all the profound questions that have haunted man since he emerged into the light. It is not a knowledge that I have learned but a knowledge that was imprinted upon my soul in those moments of nearly twenty years ago. Some of this knowledge seems to have no purpose, like the concept that in this universe space is three dimensional and time mono dimensional; and in the next world time is three dimensional and space mono dimensional, thus allowing movement in time while space has no mass. The knowledge that the only crime in life is to cause pain to others, and there is no other crime, is more vital. The answers to most of the predicaments of life are simple: we only complicate them to avoid taking action....

My mind has a sort of doorway as a result of my adventure through which I can go when life becomes too confused, a doorway into the infinite where I can again exist in bliss and be renewed by the dew of immortality, and again apprehend the Truth of the Love of God, returning renewed and refreshed....

- From the Magickal Record of Brother L.

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  A few spectators and tourists as are always found at Stonehenge were present at the beginning of the rite. As we came up out of the subway a dozen or so people grouped in twos and threes around the perimeter fence pointed us out to each other but did not approach us. The snow crunched under our feet as we ended our chant and approached the entrance of the eastern trilithion. The stones were suddenly massive and looming in a ponderous greeting. The Mars officer made the sign of the Enterer and crossed the threshold, and we followed him into the circle of Stonehenge. The spectators did not linger, but quickly left as the site was purified. The reality of the ritual frightened them, they could feel the power begin to descend and they weren’t sticking around to get toasted. A photographer from the national newspaper “The Independent” took some pictures of the preliminary rite: the photos were published the next day. The last that was seen of this person was his back as he ran down the hill towards his car, he wasn’t sticking around either. The temple was left to the ritualists.

There was a terrific atmosphere inside the stones as of a magnificently old and benign temple spirit somewhat knocked about by time but still very much alive and protective of its integrity. The space inside was comfortably big enough for the ten of us although a little to one side of the centre because of the fallen stones laying there. We were very intimately surrounded with Stonehenge, and we opened the ceremony without delay. The officer of Pluto made the statement of intent:

  "Brothers and sisters, we stand upon this ancient and most holy of places to celebrate the mysteries of the passage of time, and the conjunction of the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter with the Part of Fortune. It is our will to commemorate this moment with the inauguration of our Constitution, that by this harmonious combination of celestial influences we may attain the gifts and blessings of the Stars. So mote it be, Amen."

  The Mercury officer then read aloud the 22 articles of the Constitution.  The Lunar Priestess gave the censer to the Sun who blessed and ignited the charcoal and incense in the traditional manner and declared the temple open, whereupon Mercury performed the Lesser Banishing Rite of the Pentagram; and then took the censer from the Sun and performed the Ritual of the Rose Cross; he then returned the censer to the Moon.

  Each part of the rite had been carefully timed to ensure that each presiding officer could make his or her invocation and bless the Constitution and the talismans with the power and virtue of the planetary deity invoked as the Part of Fortune approached conjunction, and then sign the Constitution at the moment of the aspect. This meant that the Mercury and Venus invocations overlapped slightly, and there was a few moments pause, measured by Saturn, before the last invocation was made by the Priestess of the Moon.

During the performance of their invocations the voices of the officers became peculiarly resonant, as if the sound was harmonised with the vibrancy of the stones themselves. Indeed, during the Lunar invocation there came a growling rumble from the upright stone behind the Lunar Priestess. Some of us observed that the cloud cover directly above the stones parted to reveal a circle of blue sky above us, and others noticed that all the tourists had vanished. Two of the members said there was a circular rainbow in the clear blue sky above.

  Finally, the officers of Mars, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto signed their names on the Constitution and the seals of our Order were attached as the Moon went conjunct Jupiter, the last aspect before it left the sign.

  The ceremony was closed by Pluto and we left the circle, led by the Sun, Jupiter and Venus, and followed at the rear by Mars. The warden came out and opened the boundary ropes for us to pass through. We met another coachload of tourists in the subway, who respectfully parted before us in much the same way as the first lot had done.

  Back in the caravan there was a butane cooker with three burners. Tea was made. A hearty stew had been cooked in advance and transported in two pressure cookers, and now was quickly heated up. Robes were taken off and folded, magical weapons placed in safety. Fresh bread was cut and buttered. At last the feast was served up, and consumed to the last drop and crumb. A far richer feast awaited us at the end of the return journey, a feast of wine, champagne, steak, roast chicken, and cream cakes, as was our custom. We packed up our things and headed for home, oddly subdued, each of us lost in our own impressions of the ritual in the stones. It had been unlike anything we had ever experienced before.

PATH OF THE ARROW

`Midst moorland swept by tears unwept,
The darkness blinds the night.
Whilst hidden, hewn, the fallen Moon
Betrays the traveller's sight.

No stars to guide, all light has died,
The Saviour's tomb lies bare.
Through darkened days, the pilgrim prays
That faith will lead him there.

His sins confessed, his death addressed,
His spirit roams the land.
His arrow fired, His will expired,
The rod breaks in his hand.

`Cross clifftop blind with God in mind
And life within his breast,
With deafened ears, with faith not fear
He walks the narrow crest.

Whilst high in flight and out of sight,
The arrow loses steam.
The arch it bends, the path descends
Through Winter's darkest dream.

Strength and force have ran their course
Where only faith remains;
The heart is crossed, the day is lost,
The final moment wanes.

By midnight drawn, concealing dawn,
The journey's end is nigh.
The goal is reached, the darkness breached,
The flame of Life burns high.

Hark! The morn! The Sun's reborn!
The pilgrims plight is done.
The chalice fills and overspills;
With God his will is one.

 - Poem inspired by the E. Qaballistic correspondences of 418, by Brother I. 

THE RUBY STAR REVISITED

I was getting dressed

When I first met you.

You fell warm and soft

On the back of my hand

Like an old dream

Freshly remembered…

(Though you brought me my womanhood

Many years before, I did not know you

Did not expect your existence behind your shroud of centuries.)

You stretched

My female soul to the universe

Strange filaments leaped

From every vein to every star

You sparked the holy flame

To burn inside my mind, my womb –

Glory to bear this glory! -

I stand united with the earth mother

And silently behold the sacrificed son.

(What awesome joyous certainty

This secret temple, secret inner self,

Engorged and blazing with the shape of blood slow and red on white skin.)

And you

Revealed to me that you had purified

My shameless body

Returned to me my woman’s pride

Numbed and scarred no more

But smooth and crystal clear, and strong –

Transcending all the ages! -

Saying ‘this will be your sign for ever,

This is certainty that you will always know.’

(Yes I welcome the burning ache

The redeeming star, my blood on the cross

The mysteries of creation in the moment of death for life.)

And when the day comes

I dress like a queen

The proud diadem

On the back of my hand

Like an old dream

Freshly remembered…

 - Poem inspired by the E. Qaballistic correspondences of 42, by Sister C.

...I consider it of great importance that we take care with our E.Q. working and do not allow ourselves to be led astray by red herrings, lest we find ourselves barking up the wrong alley. I grant ye that it is tempting to use words that are not in the lexicon of our Sacred Book, and that sometimes they will give us meaningful results, but we must always arm ourselves with Discrimination before we begin, so that we can test our analyses against the pure text before we draw our conclusions. It may indeed be possible to arrive at the CONSCIOUSNESS(=153) of the SUN-VENUS(=107) by consuming the essence of BUTTERED(=153) PARSNIP(107), or we could try to prove that Baphomet CAPRICORN(=121) is in fact a cosmic BAKED BEAN(=121), but, I humbly suggest, not in this Universe. Our analyses must always have relevance to our lives as we live them, in the harsh light of the reality that we experience in the here and now. The reward of CHEESE=97 is a HEADACHE=79 but knowing this does not advance our Spiritual Quest by one hair’s breadth...

- From a private correspondence with Brother R.

....It is best to make a ritualised statement of intent about what you want to achieve if you are setting out on a magical quest. Any and all ritual work will produce a result, all you have to do is to define the course of action as a ritual. Then all the universe will sit up and take notice, and everything will help you on your Way.

Off you go, up the 32^nd Path, from Malkuth to Yesod, up the Middle Pillar. The stresses that will occur in your psychology will tear you to pieces as you attempt to invoke infinite perfection and harmony into your imperfect chaotic little mind. The powers that be are going to make you into something capable of being indwelt by these powers, and in you there will be decades worth of accreted rubbish that has to be got rid of. Your conscious mind is rather like a river bed full of rocks and boulders which the stream of divine light must get uprooted and pushed out of the way, and it hurts!

You have to learn how to just give up and die. The first lesson is ‘learn to die’. This is the experience of the Tower Struck Down. You have to die in three ways, to instinct, to emotion, and to reason. You will be tested every inch of the way, and often more than once or twice to make sure that you have learned this or that bit properly. Eventually you’ll make it to Tiphareth and you will know for yourself that God is Love. You will feel all the bliss and harmony and love of the Infinite and it will be the most wonderful and real experience of your life.

After a while however, maybe, you’ll realise that that isn’t quite the whole story, and so off you go again, up to Daath, letting go of this and that and the other until there is nothing of you left.. There are no stars in your universe, there is only total utter blackness, and you are like a little candle flame. Then you put the flame out. You become Nothing, and then you become Everything, because everything is made up of nothing. It’s an agonizingly frightening experience. You’ll lose your hair, you’ll lose your mind; and it’ll probably take ten years or more; but it really is the only game in town.

It’s like climbing a mountain, and you don’t need to do it more than once, because even though you cannot stay at the top, when you come back down again the structure of your mind will be permanently altered, and you will never again get caught up on the Wheel – which is a painful place to be, involved in the apparent catastrophe of a single life – and you will know that you will live forever and the knowledge will never leave you. You’ll have a philosophy of non-attachment which, by the way, was all very well for the Buddha who was a Prince born to wealth and palaces and harems and all the trimmings to give up but a bit hard on the average peasant with barely a roof and a pair of shoes to call his own: let the peasant acquire all the goodies so he can have the experience of having them before he gives them all up to sit under a boojum tree.

You can do it with the Bornless Rite, if you do it properly, if you believe it when you say “I am He the Bornless One!” - because by the time you’ve finished you will be.