Lion of Light: Delusory and Possibly Dangerous

Mina Murray confronts Oliver Haddo on the astral plane ( from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century: 1969 by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill) 

Lion of Light: "Do What Thou Wilt" pg. 112- 134

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

It would have been nice to have this essay about 15-20 years ago, when I was first working at (or, to be quite honest, obsessing over) practical magic. You can find much of what Wilson says in “Do What Thou Wilt” elsewhere, especially in his fiction and in the other essays selected by Mike and Oz for the book, but having it in such a clear, singular sequence would have made things a lot easier. Perhaps I am being cavalier, but I believe this is an example of Wilson at his least gnomic; he provides the reader with practical instructions in a full course of the theory and practice of magic. Reading it almost reminds me of the works of Lon Milo Duquette insofar as parts of “Do What Thou Wilt” are composed of a straightforward explication of magic, along with practical step-by-step instructions. I can feel the envious eyes of the younger me when I read the text and I almost want to apologize that he didn't have this in his initial fumblings. Of course, my apology does nothing to alter the course of matters and it would have deprived me of whatever wisdom may have arisen from my earlier folly…so all’s well that continues to be kinda middling. Here we are. 

For a person in 1974, Wilson was impressively well-read as far as Crowley was concerned; while I don’t think anyone who has read Crowley and Wilson pre-Lion of Light would have mistaken him for a dabbler, I am impressed by how much our author was able to get his hands on in a relatively short amount of time when it was not nearly as widely available as it has been during my lifetime. I always take the Internet for granted but then again, I imagine some of the publications Wilson owned would have been the same that sit on my bookshelves: I can see the clear influence of such 60s-70s Crowley classics as Francis King’s Crowley On Chirst and The Secret Rituals of the O.T.O. as well as Regardie’s (fantastic and gorgeous) Roll Away the Stone in “Fourfold Vision.” I would place some decent money that I know which edition of Liber Aleph Wilson owned at the time. Like any work, this is a time capsule and particularly one for a period in Wilson’s life and times that I have always loved. “The first flush of occultism” and all that in one of the groovier times in the magical milieu. 

“Fourfold Vision” has Wilson clearly laying out what made Crowley different from other “mystics” aside from more generalized observations about his humor, skeptical nature and practicality. Wilson delineates the genius of Crowley’s syncretism by quoting from The Gospel According to George Bernard Shaw and applying it to Korzybski’s Structural Differential. Wilson’s choice of passage is similar to one of my favorite passages where Crowley conveys a similar idea, but with less mystical bullshit. Compare the passage derived from Crowley On Christ (page 113 in Lion of Light) to this footnote from The Book of Thoth: 

“Thus, in low grades of initiation, dogmatic quarrels are inflamed by astral experience; as when Saint John distinguishes between the Whore BABALON and the Woman clothed with the Sun, between the Lamb that was slain and the Beast 666 whose deadly wound was healed, nor understands that Satan, the Old Serpent, in the Abyss, the Lake of Fire and Sulphur, is the Sun-Father, the vibration of Life, Lord of Infinite Space that flames with His Consuming Energy, and is also that throned Light whose Spirit is suffused throughout the City of Jewels.” 

While I personally crave and revel in mystical bullshit, I can see where Wilson’s passage and explanation is much more useful than mine as it eschews the apocalyptic, somewhat condescending and wholly-upsetting-to-Christians language. (I now realize upon rereading this that, if anything, Wilson's selection is much more condescending and as likely to upset Xtians. But it is clearer and less apocalyptic.) We are also treated once again to what must have been one of Wilson’s all-time favorite passages from Crowley, considering how much it reappears in his writings: the second passage of Liber O vel Manus et Sagittae. 

“In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them.” 

One must admit that Crowley does a pretty good job advertising the fun right there. Herein, Wilson also appends the third passage where Crowley says that the practices in Liber O will widen the horizon and improve control of the mind. I can humbly attest that my general experience with Liber O would bear out Crowley’s promise(s). After diligently ignoring the passage from Liber Aleph where Crowley exhorts the student to firstly gain a grasp of mathematics, a task much more difficult for me than for either of the two authors at hand, and their advertisement for the possible usefulness of drugs, Wilson gives a precise name to Crowley’s method: logic-empiricism-magic-yoga. In my afterword, I propose that this is another version of what Ramsey Dukes (Lionel Snell) would perceive as his Religion-Art-Magic-Science structure, but Wilson also gives an outline that clearly differentiates it from the theory in SSOTBME. Particularly interesting, and convincing, is Wilson’s examination of how different societies and philosophies have so far failed to combine all four together, with one or two always being neglected in favor of the others. 

Wilson’s discussion of the A.’.A.’. is accurate: for all the mystery around the A.’.A.’., Crowley is extraordinarily clear and plain-faced in his description of the grades and their tasks. I know I spent too much time worrying about if there was an “actual” A.’.A.’. or not and debating whether I should formally join instead of working the path on my lonesome. So, I’m going to go ahead and say it is immaterial: one can join the A.’.A.’. by simply following what has been laid out here and in Crowley’s own work. As far as what A.’.A.’. stands for, I generally believe that it is “Astron Argon” or “Aster Argos” ( the latter of which is simply "Argentum Astrum," but in Greek), or that we’ll never know on this side of the veil: I asked my wife what she suspects it might truly mean. Her guess was "Arrogant Assholes," my guess is "Amateur Assembly."

After this, we are brought back to Wilson’s appreciation of Crowley’s humor, something I covered in my last post here. I told you that we’d run into Wilson’s love of Crowley’s “bloody sacrifice” joke again, even if it is only a small mention at the moment. You’ve already read and will read again and again in Wilson his admiration for The Book of Lies and especially Chapter 69, a joke that even junior high students would find understandable. Crowley’s poem from Thien Tao, or The Synagogue of Satan makes an appearance in Masks of the Illuminati as “ a succinct and representative example of the controversial verse of Mr. Crowley.” (Thien Tao can be found in one of my favorite of Crowley’s books, Konx Om Pax.) And while discussing Ambrossii Magi Hortus Rosarium, an early poem-play, Wilson gives some examples of Crowley’s dirty acrostic-notariqons while leaving out the equally delightful  “Femina Rapota Inspirat Gaudium.” 

I was never very good at astral projection and found Crowley’s instruction in Part V of Liber O too damned simple- this is funny as Wilson’s almost identical instructions occurred to me as much easier to understand while being pretty much the same. Perhaps that indicates a change in what I consider simple or possible compared to my younger self. I always hated Crowley’s line “It may be added that this apparently complicated experiment is perfectly easy to perform” at the end of that section as I could never cross the threshold of ever feeling as if I weren’t willing most, if not all, of the experience. I’m sure the younger me wouldn’t have appreciated Wilson calling astral projection “simple and most entertaining,” but that’s the stubborn resentment of youth for you. The only times I have confidently sailed the astral sea have been in those sporadic moments when I was willing to eschew whatever expectations I had and forgone slavish pratice, conditions I'm sure neither man intended. (Add to this how desperately I longed to explore my surely over-romanticized conception of the astral plane, one can see why it was my desire to study “The Seer,” mentioned as further reading on the subject in Liber O, and the full text of The Temple of Solomon the King at leisure that caused me to chase down a copy of The Equinox Volume I well before on demand publishing made it a financially sound endeavor. This has made me consider that it might be time to revisit astral travel, at least to satisfy the heartfelt interest of the self that made so many decisions and set me out upon this quest. Maybe I'd be able to let go of lust for results more easily.)

I was always more adept at the assumption of god-forms and fondly remember timeless moments spent expanding my ibis-headed form above the campus of my undergrad school, then the town, the surrounding countryside, the region, the continent and into the starry heavens and beyond. While I certainly didn’t put it in the extremely useful psychological context provided by Wilson, I believe that sustained use of the practice did help stabilize me and help with a feeling of oneness with all things. I do think it would be interesting to experiment with other god-forms, as a quick perusal of my diaries only indicates that I tried it using the traditional Thoth image, along with a couple experiments with Horus. I do wish Wilson had explained the process of the vibration of god names in his own words as I've always found Crowley's (and Duquette's) "break-downs" of the practice to be lacking.

The itty-bitty-shitty-me worries that what I’ve written above isn’t enough, or clear enough, or clever enough, or too simple or whathaveyou, but I’ve dithered overlong already and it’s two evenings past when I should have had this up. I didn't pretend to have a bird's head for nothing. Happy journeys, until we meet again! 

Love is the law, love under will. 

A.C.