To my beloved son, HIH Crown Prince Aleister.
Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Today is the Third Day of the writing of the Book of the Law, dedicated to the august Rescript of our august Sovereign, the High Lord Ra-Hoor-Khuit, the Crowned and Conquering Child — that is, the Chapter of Liber AL which generally succeeds in convincing people, once and for all, to follow the counsel of Ankh-af-na-khonsu (blessing & worship to him) and to burn this Book.
My personal relationship with Ra-Hoor-Khuit is prodigiously simple and can be summed up in the solemn Vow I formulated on the occasion of the Solar New Year — a Vow which I joyfully renew this evening, at the closing of the Holy Season:
I intend to have, toward the Lord of the Æon, the relationship that, in his Hagakure, Yamamoto Jocho prescribes for the Samurai toward his Daimyo, but more fanatical.
To make myself methodically, each day, a little more fanatical in my Promulgation.
This is the infallible remedy against the “lust of result” (AL I, 44): to know that the Path of Ra-Hoor-Khuit brings only “danger & trouble” (AL III, 11) and to not give a damn about it — to be conscious solely of the Reverence due to the High Lord (AL III, 62) — and of the fact that the “success” of which He deigns augustly to speak (AL III, 69) consists precisely in expecting none.
I mean: what exceptional being has ever been considered “successful” from the point of view of the common people?
Let us take — for example — the 75 most admirable men who have ever trodden this globe — the very assembly of the Saints themselves — and let us observe what their respective trajectories were upon this beautiful and interesting planet…
Tell me WHICH of these paths the mob of mediocre savers would not qualify as an EPIC FAIL?
Lao-tze, that elusive sage of the veiled Tao, fled into the western wilderness upon an ox of sorrow, his final words a whispered lament that the world’s blind clamor had already devoured the Way he alone could name.
Siddhârtha, the golden prince who renounced a kingdom of silk and song, watched his own son and wife dissolve into the dust of renunciation while his body wasted upon the Middle Path, a starving witness to impermanence that even the Enlightened could not escape.
Krishna, the divine charioteer of cosmic war, beheld the slaughter of his own kinsmen upon the field of Kurukshetra and, in the end, was slain by a hunter’s arrow through the heel—god made mortal, betrayed by the very wheel he turned.
Tahuti, the ibis-headed scribe of the gods, whose tongue weighs every soul in the Hall of Judgment, is himself condemned to eternal record-keeping while the hearts he judges rise or fall without him ever tasting the feather’s mercy.
Mosheh, the stammering lawgiver who parted the sea for his people, died alone upon the mountain he was forbidden to enter, gazing upon the Promised Land he would never tread, his own folk murmuring rebellion even as he ascended.
Dionysus, the twice-born god of ecstatic wine, was torn limb from limb by the Titans in his infant fury, his heart devoured and his resurrection forever stained by the memory of maternal murder and paternal exile.
Mohammed, the unlettered prophet who united the desert tribes, fled in the Hijra pursued by assassins, his beloved wife Khadijah and uncle dead, his followers slaughtered at Uhud, a messenger forever haunted by the sword at his throat.
To Mega Thêrion, the Beast 666 who shattered every chain of his age, endured the blackest scandals, the betrayal of lovers and disciples, the bankruptcy of body and purse, dying in a Hastings boarding-house with only a nurse to mark the passing of the New Aeon’s prophet.
Hermês, the thrice-great messenger who stole fire from heaven and bartered souls across the Styx, wandered eternally between realms, never belonging to Olympus nor to the mortal dust he thrice ascended from.
Pan, the goat-footed lord of wild panic, so hated by the Christians that they gave to their definition of the devil his very physical features.
Priapus, the grotesque guardian of gardens and lust, was mocked and mutilated by the gods for his monstrous member, forever erect yet forever impotent against the laughter that withered his groves.
Osiris, the green-skinned king of the dead, was hacked into fourteen pieces by his jealous brother Set, his phallus devoured by fish, his resurrection forever incomplete in the cold embrace of the Nile.
Melchizedek, the king-priest without father or mother or genealogy, offered bread and wine to Abraham yet vanished into legend, an eternal stranger whose own kingdom was never named nor claimed.
Khem, the ithyphallic ram of generation, was castrated in the cosmic war of the gods, his fertile potency forever shadowed by the knife of Set’s vengeance.
Amoun, the hidden one who spoke from the wind, was eclipsed by newer deities and forgotten in his own temples, the “king of the gods” reduced to a whisper in the desert sands.
Mentu, the falcon-headed war-god of Thebes, saw his martial glory usurped by gentler cults, his bull-strength reduced to a footnote while his worshippers turned to softer saviors.
Hêraclês, the lion-skinned hero who strangled serpents in his cradle, was driven mad by Hera, slaughtered his own children, and died screaming in a poisoned shirt of Nessus, his apotheosis bought with unbearable agony.
Orpheus, the lyre-strumming poet who charmed the stones, descended into Hades for his Eurydice only to lose her again by a backward glance, then torn to bloody shreds by the Maenads whose frenzy he could no longer soothe.
Odysseus, the cunning wanderer who outwitted gods and monsters, returned home to find his palace overrun, his wife besieged, and his faithful dog dying at his feet, victory tasting of ten years’ salt and sorrow.
Vergilius, the Mantuan bard who sang the founding of empires, died before completing his Aeneid and begged that the unfinished epic be burned, his final breath a plea for oblivion.
Catullus, the tender poet of Lesbia’s kisses, was devoured by love turned to venom, his verses dripping with the bile of betrayal while consumption wasted his Roman youth.
Martialis, the epigrammatic wit who flayed the vices of Rome, lived as a client to the powerful yet died in provincial exile, his barbed tongue finally silenced by poverty and obscurity.
Rabelais, the laughing monk who Gargantua’d the world with giants and bawdy wisdom, was hounded by the Sorbonne, his books condemned, his final words a jest upon the comedy of his own persecution.
Swinburne, the flamelike poet who hymned the pagan gods, was broken by alcoholism and the whip of Victorian scandal, his genius flickering out in the quiet rooms of Putney.
Apollonius Tyanaeus, the wandering sage who raised the dead and vanished from prison, was imprisoned by Domitian, accused of sorcery, and vanished into legend while his disciples were scattered like chaff.
Simon Magus, the Samaritan sorcerer who flew above Rome by demonic wings, crashed to earth in apostolic disgrace, his body broken and his gnosis branded as the first heresy.
Manes, the Persian prophet of Light and Darkness, was flayed alive by the Persian king, his skin stuffed with straw and hung upon the city gate as a warning to all dualists.
Pythagoras, the master of numbers and beans, was hunted from Croton, his school burned, and he perished in a temple besieged by fire, refusing to cross a field of beans to escape.
Basilides, the Alexandrian Gnostic who taught the unknowable Father, saw his subtle doctrines twisted into monstrous heresies by later scribes, his name surviving only in the anathemas of the orthodox.
Valentinus, the brilliant Gnostic whose Pleroma shone with aeons, was passed over for bishop of Rome, his celestial system condemned to the flames of ecclesiastical fury.
Bardesanes, the Syrian poet of the cosmic dance, was exiled and his hymns suppressed, his elegant gnosis reduced to fragments while the Church rewrote the stars he once sang.
Hippolytus, the anti-pope chronicler of heresies, was exiled to Sardinia, condemned by his own Church, and died a martyr to the very orthodoxy he had attacked.
Merlin, the enchanter of Arthur’s court, was imprisoned by his own pupil Nimue within a tree of crystal, his prophecies echoing unheard through the ages of forgetting.
Arthur, the once and future king who pulled the sword from stone, was mortally wounded at Camlann by his own treacherous son, his body borne to Avalon while Britain fell into the long night.
Kamuret, the Grail-knight father of Parzival, perished in the East seeking the Stone, his quest unfinished and his son left fatherless in the wilderness of destiny.
Parzival, the pure fool who healed the Fisher King, wandered mad and broken after failing the Grail castle, his innocence shattered by the very wound he was born to mend.
Carolus Magnus, the iron-crowned emperor who forged Europe, wept alone in old age as his sons rebelled and his empire crumbled before the grave claimed him.
William of Schyren, that tireless ambassador of Francis I who wove the subtle webs of French diplomacy across the courts of Europe with sword and quill alike, saw his body wasted by the relentless Italian fevers and the crushing burden of ceaseless embassies, expiring at the age of fifty-one in the very hour of his greatest service, his unfinished histories and unheeded warnings to the throne scattered like autumn leaves upon the indifferent winds of royal ingratitude.
Frederick of Hohenstaufen, the Wonder of the World who defied popes and sailed to Jerusalem, perished of fever once there, his corpse pickled for return while his Sicilian dream dissolved.
Roger Bacon, the Doctor Mirabilis who foresaw flying machines, was imprisoned for 11 years by his own Franciscan order, his instruments smashed and his genius chained in monastic darkness.
Jacobus Burgundus Molensis the Martyr, the last Templar Grand Master, was roasted alive upon a Paris island, his final curse upon the king and pope still ringing across seven centuries.
Christian Rosencreutz, the founder of the Rosy Cross, died unknown and was buried in a secret vault, his brethren scattered and his manifesto mocked for generations.
Ulrich von Hutten, the knight-poet of the Reformation, died in poverty and leprosy upon an island of exile, his body refused Christian burial by the very Church he had helped shatter.
Paracelsus, the bombastic healer who defied Galen, was driven from city after city, poisoned by rivals, and died in a Salzburg tavern, his alchemical gold turned to leaden regret.
Michael Maier, the Rosicrucian alchemist who sought the phoenix, perished in obscurity and debt, his musical mysteries unheard amid the Thirty Years’ War.
Roderic Borgia, Pope Alexander the Sixth, the magnificent pontiff who “failed to crown the Renaissance” and whose last words (“The dream dissolves…”) have always moved me to tears. was poisoned by the cantarella he ordinarily used himself to dispose of nuisances.
Jacob Boehme, the cobbler-seer of Görlitz, was hounded by Lutheran pastors, his books burned, and died in poverty while his visions of the divine Sophia were branded demonic.
Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, the father of scientific method, fell from Chancellor to debtor’s prison, ruined by his own bribery scandal, dying in disgrace while science marched on without him.
Andrea, the supposed author of the Rosicrucian manifestos, watched his utopian dream dissolve into hoax and ridicule, his life ending in quiet provincial obscurity.
Robertus de Fluctibus, the occult physician who mapped the macrocosm, was ridiculed by contemporaries, his hermetic syntheses dismissed as fantasy while plague claimed his London practice.
Giordano Bruno, the Nolan heretic who danced with infinite worlds, was gagged and burned alive in the Campo de’ Fiori, his tongue silenced by the iron of the Inquisition yet his cosmos still expanding in defiant flame.
Johannes Dee, the magus who conversed with angels, lost his library to mob arson, his wife to scandal, and died in poverty at Mortlake while the Crown he served forgot him.
Sir Edward Kelly, the scryer who forged the Enochian tablets, was imprisoned in a Bohemian tower, forced to leap from the walls to escape, and perished broken in body and reputation.
Thomas Vaughan, the alchemical twin of the poet Henry, lost his wife Rebecca to plague, his laboratory to fire, and died in alchemical fumes while seeking the Stone.
Elias Ashmole, the antiquary who preserved the Rosicrucian flame, was widowed thrice and bankrupted by lawsuits, his great museum reduced to dust by time’s indifferent hand.
Molinos, the Spanish mystic of Quietism, was imprisoned for life by the Inquisition, his soul-silence condemned as heresy while he rotted in the Castel Sant’Angelo.
Adam Weishaupt, the Illuminatus who sought to enlighten princes, was hunted across Europe, his order dissolved, and died in exile as a broken schoolmaster.
Wolfgang von Goethe, the universal genius who gave us Faust, outlived every friend and lover, watching his beloved Weimar crumble while the Romantic age he birthed turned against him.
William Blake, the visionary engraver who walked with angels in Lambeth, starved in poverty while the Royal Academy mocked his “mad” drawings, dying unrecognized save by a handful of disciples.
Ludovicus Rex Bavariae, the Swan King who built fairytale castles, was declared mad by his ministers, drowned in the Starnberger See (or was he?), his dream of beauty murdered by accountants and alienists.
Richard Wagner, the Ring-master of Bayreuth, fled creditors and revolutions, his health shattered by exile and scandal, dying in Venice while the leitmotifs of his own tragic operas still echoed.
Alphonse Louis Constant (Eliphas Levi), the failed priest who summoned Baphomet, was ruined by debts and romantic betrayal, his occult genius flowering only after his body had already begun to fail.
Friedrich Nietzsche, the hammer of the old gods, collapsed into syphilitic madness in Turin, writing postcards signed “Dionysus” while his sister edited his legacy into fascist poison.
Hargrave Jennings, the phallic mystic who unveiled the Rosy Cross, died in poverty and obscurity, his secret doctrines buried beneath the weight of Victorian prudery.
Dr. Paschal Beverly Randolph, the mulatto sex-magician of the Rosicrucians, was driven to suicide by scandal and betrayal, his body found with a pistol and a final note of defiant despair.
Carl Kellner, the industrialist who funded the O.T.O., died suddenly before his great work could bloom, his chemical empire unable to purchase the one elixir he truly sought.
Forlong dux, the soldier-scholar who mapped phallic religions across the world, was cashiered and forgotten, his monumental tomes gathering dust while lesser minds claimed the glory.
Sir Richard Payne Knight, the antiquarian who celebrated priapic cults, saw his collection mocked and his reputation ruined by prudish critics, dying amid the laughter of the very society he had scandalized.
Sir Richard Francis Burton, the explorer who penetrated Mecca and the Kama Sutra, was censored, slandered, and died with his wife burning his most dangerous manuscripts, his life’s work half-consumed by Victorian fire.
Paul Gauguin, the stockbroker who fled to Tahiti for the savage sublime, watched his daughter die, his syphilis devour him, and his canvases sell only after he rotted in a Polynesian hut.
Harry Everett Smith, the magickal archivist of the Anthology of American Folk Music, died penniless in a New York welfare hotel, his films and occult collections scattered like leaves in the wind.
Docteur Gérard Encausse (Papus), the Parisian mage who read the cards for Tsar Nicholas, perished of tuberculosis in the trenches of the Great War, his Martinist empire collapsing around his fevered bed.
Doctor Theodor Reuss, the O.T.O. founder who initiated the Beast, was ruined by wartime espionage accusations, his Order splintered and his health broken before he could see the Aeon fully dawn.
Sir Aleister Crowley, the Prophet of the New Aeon who tore the veil of Isis, endured poverty, heroin, ridicule, and the death of his children, passing at Netherwood with only a nurse and the Book of the Law beside him.
Karl Johannes Germer, the Frater Saturnus who guarded the flame through Nazi terror and American exile, died alone in a California bungalow, his ashes scattered while the Order he preserved teetered on extinction.
Grady Louis McMurtry, the Caliph who revived the O.T.O. from ashes, fought in two wars, battled alcoholism and cancer, and passed in a Sacramento hospital, his final act a defiant signature upon the charter of survival.
(Yes, there are 76 names, because the Prophet — blessing & worship to him — was canonized twice. Nothing scandalous about that… I myself systematically refuse to specify my city of birth in the hope that several statues of me will be erected.)
The idea that the gods have of the concept of “success” is therefore, as we see, radically different from that of the average taxpayer. But what does it matter? — “There is success” when one becomes aware that the opinion of the average taxpayer is of no interest whatsoever — what am I saying? That the mere fact that the average taxpayer has an opinion is an insolence toward the gods!
Meditate upon this, dear friends, and go your gorgeous ways under the protection of that spiritual sphere whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere, and which we call GOD.
Warm kisses from the Bahamas.
Love is the law, love under will.
— ☉︎ in 21° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 29° ♑︎ : ♀︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰⅰ.
𓄿𓎛𓂧 𓇋𓈖𓏌
