MAGICK IN THEORY AND PRACTICE [BOOK 4 (LIBER ABA) PART III] First published Paris: Lecram Press., 1930 Corrected edition included in Magick: Book 4 Parts I-IV, York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1994 This electronic edition prepared and issued by Celephaïs Press, somewhere beyond the Tanarian Hills, and manifested in the waking world in Leeds, Yorkshire, England July 2004. (c) Ordo Templi Orientis JAF Box 7666 New York NY 10116 U.S.A. MAGICK IN THEORY AND PRACTICE BY THE MASTER THERION (ALEISTER CROWLEY) BOOK 4 PART III Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Celephaïs Press Ulthar - Sarkomand - Inquanok – Leeds 2004 Hymn to Pan [v] ——— ἔφιξ᾿ἔρωτι περιαρχὴς δ᾿ ἀνεπιόµαν ἰὼ ἰὼ πὰν πὰν ὢ πὰν πὰν ἁ λιπλαγκτε, κυλλανίας χιονοκτύποι πετραίς ἀπὸ δειράδος φάνηθ᾿, ὦ θεῶν χοροπόι ἄναξ —SOPH. Aj. ——— THRILL with lissome lust of the light, O man! My man! Come careering out of the night Of Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan! Come over the sea From Sicily and from Arcady! Roaming as Bacchus, with fauns and pards And nymphs and satyrs for thy guards, On a milk-white ass, come over the sea To me, to me, Come with Apollo in bridal dress (Shepherdess and pythoness) Come with Artemis, silken shod, And wash thy white thigh, beautiful God, In the moon of the woods, on the marble mount, The dimpled dawn of the amber fount! Dip the purple of passionate prayer In the crimson shrine, the scarlet snare, The soul that startles in eyes of blue To watch thy wantonness weeping through [vi] — v — HYMN TO PAN The tangled grove, the gnarléd bole Of the living tree that is spirit and soul And body and brain - come over the sea, (Io Pan! Io Pan!) Devil or god, to me, to me, My man! my man! Come with trumpets sounding shrill Over the hill! Come with drums low muttering From the spring! Come with flute and come with pipe! Am I not ripe? I, who wait and writhe and wrestle With air that hath no boughs to nestle My body, weary of empty clasp, Strong as a lion and sharp as an asp - Come, O come! I am numb With the lonely lust of devildom. Thrust the sword through the galling fetter, All-devourer, all-begetter; Give me the sign of the Open Eye, And the token erect of thorny thigh, And the word of madness and mystery, O Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan Pan! Pan, I am a man: Do as thou wilt, as a great god can, O Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! I am awake In the grip of the snake. The eagle slashes with beak and claw; The gods withdraw: The great beasts come, Io Pan! I am borne To death on the horn Of the Unicorn. — vi — HYMN TO PAN I am Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan! I am thy mate, I am thy man, [vii] Goat of thy flock, I am gold, I am god, Flesh to thy bone, flower to thy rod. With hoofs of steel I race on the rocks Through solstice stubborn to equinox. And I rave; and I rape and I rip and I rend Everlasting, world without end, Mannikin, maiden, Mænad, man, In the might of Pan. Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan! Io Pan! — vii — Prefatory Note Our beloved Soror VIRAKAM, feeling the hoodwink of her inexperience in Practical Magick, has asked me to take up the work of obtaining this book from the lips of Frater Perdurabo. Conscious of my own defects, I yet yielded to her insistence, and most earnestly thank and bless her for the privilege conferred. The bravest as the sweetest of all the women I have known, she has now, at the suggestion of the Master, entered the harem of a Turk in order to study Mohammedan methods of Mysticism and Magick. Blessed among women be her name unto the ages! I have done my best to cross-examine Frater Perdurabo on all points of difficulty that have occurred in my own working, and I have been incomparably blest by the instruction, and yet more by the Initiation, which I have received. However, it has proved impossible to confine Part III to such elementary thought as the former parts. Remonstrance has only drawn from Frater Perdurabo the reply that He has it in mind to say these things, and that they had better be said now, lest He forget to say them at some other time. This must be my excuse to any who find portions of this Part III difficult to understand. Let them take courage; practice and progress will make all clear as it is glorious. It is earth that breeds the clouds that hide the sun. Let them leave earth; they will find Him, the source of all Light.1 SOROR AGATHA. ————————————— 1. It is amazing to observe that FRATER PERDURABO, when He had completed the series of discourses in Part II, supposed that He had exhaussted the subject. Everyone (He thought) would say, “Oh, that is the meaning of the Wand!” “Now I understand about the Cup!” It never occurred to Him that there were people who had not done magick. He only thought that there might be a few who were doing it badly!!!!! — viii — Introduction Ἔσσεαι ἀθάνατος θεός, ἀµβροτος, ὀυκ ἔτι θνητός. Pythagoras.1 “MAGIC is the Highest, most Absolute, and most Divine Knowledge of Natural Philosophy, advanced in its works and wonderful operations by a right understanding of the inward and occult virtue of things; so that true Agents being applied to proper Patients, strange and admirable effects will thereby be produced. Whence magicians are profound and diligent searchers into Nature; they, because of their skill, know how to anticipate an effect, the which to the vulgar shall seem to be a miracle.” The Goëtia of the Lemegeton of King Solomon.2 “Whenever sympathetic magic occurs in its pure unadulterated form, it is assumed that in nature one event follows another necessarily and invariably without the intervention of any spiritual or personal agency. “Thus its fundamental conception is identical with that of modern science; underlying the whole system is a faith, implicit but real and firm, in the order and uniformity of nature. The magician does not doubt that the same causes will always produce the same effects, that the performance of the proper ceremony accompanied by the appropriate spell, will invariably be attended by the desired results, unless, indeed, his incantations should chance to be thwarted and foiled by the more potent charms of another sorcerer. He supplicates no higher power: he sues the favour of no fickle and wayward being: he abases himself before no awful deity. Yet his power, great as he believes it to be, is by no means ————————————— 1. [Grk., “You shall be a deathless god, immortal, no longer subject to death.” The final line of the “Golden Verses of Pythagoras,”] 2. [Part of the “Preliminary Definition of Magic” which appears at the start of some MSS. of the Lemegeton, a 17th-century English compilation of magical texts attributed to Solomon; in turn taken from an English translation of Themis Auræ, a Rosicrucian work by Michael Maier.] — ix — MAGICK IN THEORY AND PRACTICE arbitrary and unlimited. He can wield it only so long as he strictly conforms to the rules of his art, or to what may be called the laws of [x] nature as conceived by him. To neglect these rules, to break these laws in the smallest particular is to incur failure, and may even expose the unskilful practitioner himself to the utmost peril. If he claims a sovereignty over nature, it is a constitutional sovereignty rigorously limited in its scope and exercised in exact conformity with ancient usage. Thus the analogy between the magical and the scientific conceptions of the world is close. In both of them the succession of events is perfectly regular and certain, being determined by immutable laws, the operation of which can be foreseen and calculated precisely; the elements of caprice, of chance, and of accident are banished from the course of nature. Both of them open up a seemingly boundless vista of possibilities to him who knows the causes of things and can touch the secret springs that set in motion the vast and intricate mechanism of the world. Hence the strong attraction which magic and science alike have exercised on the human mind; hence the powerful stimulus that both have given to the pursuit of knowledge. They lure the weary enquirer, the footsore seeker, on through the wilderness of disappointment in the present by their endless promises of the future: they take him up to the top of an exceeding high mountain and shew him, beyond the dark clouds and rolling mists at his feet, a vision of the celestial city, far off, it may be, but radiant with unearthly splendour, bathed in the light of dreams.” Dr. J. G. FRAZER, The Golden Bough.1 “So far, therefore, as the public profession of magic has been one of the roads by which the ablest men have passed to supreme power, it has contributed to emancipate mankind from the thraldom of tradition and to elevate them into a larger, freer life, with a broader outlook on the world. This is no small service rendered to humanity. And when we remember further that in another direction magic has paved the way for science, we are force to admit that if the black art has done much evil, it has also been the source of much good; that if it is the child of error, it has yet been the mother of freedom and truth.” 2 Ibid.