noise-vs-signal:

“Wisdom for the New Flesh” by Andrew D. Chumbley

“An Introduction to the Lore of the Sabbatic Tradition with reference to the transmission of the Quintessential-Azoёtic Current.

In seeking the Quintessence of Magick we must seek within ourselves, as Unique Stars shining
within the Body of the Void – shining with the Single Flame of Magical Power. We must not look further
than the Present Moment, nor strive towards an ever-distant Idol of Perfection; rather we must grasp the
Secret NOW.

For the Arcanum of the Quintessential Current lies within our flesh, permeating the blood
with the quickening of the Spirit; and here within the Vessel of the Body the Primal Atavism of the Magician is enshrined.

This atavism is called within the Tradition of the Sabbatic Mysteries ‘the First-born of Witch-blood’. It is the Soul of the Mundane Autochthon, the Ancestor/Ancestress unto whom the First Vision
was given and unto whom the gift of speech was bestowed, that he might utter the Power of the Vision
through the sacred medium of language (the Sacred Alphabet) and thus communicate the Arcana unto Us,
the Inheritors of Witchblood.

This ‘First-born’ of Magick is named by some ‘Cain’, he who received the Mark of the Beast upon
his brow. Cain is called ‘the Master of Horsemen’ and is identified with the Blacksmith, the Master of Fire
and Metal. He is referred to as ‘the Man-in-Black’ and as such may be identified with the Burnt or Blackened God – Shaitan or Set-an.

Within the Sabbatic Tradition ‘the Man-in-Black’ is figured as the Devil, the
Great Opposer, and is in literal terms the very entity of Death. As ‘Death’ or Thanatos he is the deified
form of the first initiate, and his god-form or ‘entity’ is the Gateway to the atavistic lineage of the Tradition, from the First-born to the Last-dead of Witchblood.

The means by which we may enter into communication with these atavisms of magical heredity
through the Gateway of our own bodies may best be described in terms which are at once both mystical
and practical. We are taught that the Primal Goddess, who is Life Itself, must be called upon at the Place
where three roads meet. These three roads are the three states of awareness – Waking, Dreaming and
Sleeping. The Goddess is the Continuity of Awareness – the State in which the Adept abides after the accomplishment of contemplative, ritual and votive disciplines.

Beyond the Meeting-place of the three
roads there is the Fourth Road; this is entered through any State of ‘Inbetweenness’, such as a ritually induced hiatus of consciousness or more often the State of Hypnagogia. The Fourth Road is the Trance
State Itself — the State of Silent Knowing or Gnosis.

The Sabbatic Teaching is that where the Four
Roads meet the Power of Death resides. As the God of the Cross’d-Roads he leads the Aspirant through
the Psychostasis of the Initiatory Ordeals, thus granting him communion with the ‘Living And the Dead of
All Blessed And Wise’.

In summary, the instantaneity of Illumination is the immediate result of contact with the innermost
sanctum of our own being. It is the unveiling of all past and future transitions of entity through which the
Indivisible ‘I’ will pass, by the means of going to the ‘Cross-roads’ or Transvocatory Point between all
Space and Time.

The Great Sorcerer draws Power from his own Death. Now!

I have outlined in a basic manner the crux of a Body of Lore, whose elegant simplicity and yet
highly intricate nuances cannot be given a just expression by words alone. But nonetheless this outline
will suffice to impart to the reader a sense of the approach to the Quintessential Current which the Tradition of the Sabbatic Craft may grant the Aspirant. In essence it focuses upon the individual as a centre of
power and emphasizes the vital importance of one’s personal vision of the World.

Rather than primarily
attempting to externalize a Unity of different initiatory streams, by bringing together individuals skilled in
such, to facilitate a ‘working group’, its prime objective is to allow the individual aspirant to discover the
Unity of Magical Power within, whilst engaging them in a complete body of magical disciplines and lore
without compromising the germination of personal insight. (This manner of Teaching is akin to the Sufic
Technique known as the ‘scatter’ method).

By going forth through the Gateway of the Cross’d-Roads the
aspirant meets face-to-face the Catena of the Mighty Dead – not only those of his own metempsychotic
lineage, but all Kindred of Our Arte to which he is bound by the Covenant of descent from the First Initiate.

He enters the Circle of the Living and the Dead to dance in co-ёval rings of moments, days and
epochs, hand-in-hand with Gods, Beasts, Men and things of Spirit and Flesh as yet unnamed. This Vision
is that of the Great Sabbat — the Prototype or ‘Form’ of Magical Quintessence from which all magical
rites and practices take their pattern.

It has been called ‘The Communion of the Saints’, ‘The Sabbath of
the Witches’, in antiquity ‘The Sabaziorum’, and in the times of Ancient Babylon ‘Sa-bat’.

To some this
Vision is full of glorious imagery, where angelic nymphs will lead them carousing and singing to feasts of
delightful superabundance. Yet to others it is an infernal pilgrimage, traversing gulfs of pain upon ladders
of knives, jostling with concupiscent hordes of half-formed Satyri and Succubi unto the oft’-bloodied altar, where the Anus of the Goat is kissed as though it were the tender lips of a Proserpinian Virgin.

The Unity of these disparate representations lies in an integral area of Sabbatic Lore, the Teachings regarding the Hand and the Eye, in which magico-aesthetic formulae regarding the Purity of Perception and the sensory transmission of the Quintessential Current via Art have been developed, and are still
under refinement.

Their Praxis is fundamentally akin to that of the Varna Marg and the One-Life/Short-Path of the Bon-po Mystics of Tibet and Nepal — the Full Embrace of Abomination in order to gain intercourse with True Beauty and Understanding.

This is glyphed by the transmogrification of the Osculum
Infame to the ‘Sacrificial’ Heiros Gamos of the Virgo Sabbati, and that of the Medusine Witch-Queen into
the flowering visage of an Aphrodite. (It is of note in comparison to the One-Life/Short-Path that there is
an identity with the ‘Fourth Road’ previously mentioned, this also relating to the half coil of the Fire-snake
or Kundalini, which is of three and one half coils. The identity between the ‘Short Path’ and the ‘Fourth Road’ is explicit
upon a study of common techniques and aims within both the practical and the mystical fields).

With regard to the magico-aestheticism of Sabbatic Lore, we have a direct cultic precursor in Zos
vel Thanatos (Austin Osman Spare), whose own artistic and magical work greatly refined this specific
area of the Tradition. He was himself an Initiate of the Sabbatic Mysteries — in the Outer via the lineage
of Yelda Paterson and the Salem Witch-cult, and upon the Inner via the psychically inductive initiations
caused by traffick with ‘intrusive familiars’ such as ‘Black Eagle’, as well as the metempsychotic inductions of the Sabbatic Lore facilitated by his practice of Atavistic Resurgence.

It was through the personage of Zos that the Sabbatic Current conjoined with the Typhonian 93 ̇. ̇ Current transmitted through the
O.T.O. The symbiosis of the two streams is attained par excellence via the Zos Kia Cultus, which may be
seen as both an ‘atavism’ of the Sabbatic Cult today and as the ‘Portal’ for the insurgent vitality which is
presently revivifying the Circle of Artist-Initiates.

It is perhaps pertinent at this juncture to state my own
role in these matters and to comment, as much as is permitted without breaching the law of secrecy, upon
the present form of the Cultus Sabbati. Contrary to the aspersions of historians, anthropologists and occultists, there are surviving traditions of magic, witchcraft and sorcerous practices in Britain and Europe.

The one to which I belong is that of the Sabbatic Craft or Cultus Sabbati which, discarding nominalisations, is a magical tradition preserved a direct lineage of Outer Initiations. Its essence or ‘Current’ is native
to Britain, although in antiquity it has been informed by the same current from Sumer which informs the O.T.O. (hence the etymology of Sabbat = Sa-Bat, the Lunar festival of Inanna) and is within my
own time once more assimilating the web of currents transmitted from the many occult power-zones upon
and beyond the Mundane Sphere.

The Lineage of Outer Initiations, which has been unbroken since before the inauguration of the
Thelemic Era, is preserved by a means simply called the ‘Passing-On or Passing-Over of Power’. It is
usually a gesture of contact between the Initiate and the Initiator — accompanied by the reception of the
Pass-word and the Words of Benediction: “May the Blessing Be”.

It is of note that this blessing and gesture are identical to that preserved in certain Sufic and Dhulqarneni Circles, the words being translated
directly as “Mubarak Bashad” — “May the Blessing Be”.

A cognate means of this ‘Passing-On’ will be
found in the tradition of ‘The Horse-Whisperers’, a Secret Society closely linked to the oldest forms of the
Craft — hence the relevance of the ‘Master of Horsemen’ or Cain, the First Initiate, born from the Union
of Adam and Lilith.

Certain forms of Freemasonry, Voudon, the Bon-po, as well as the aforementioned
Sufic and Equine-totem sects et al., preserve an initiatory gesture to impart the power of their current from
Initiator to Initiate.

Within the Sabbatic Craft this is only bestowed when the aspirant has fulfilled a preparatory period of nine months and a novitiate period of one year and a day, during which they are taught
and trained in the manner of the tradition. There are other means of this ‘Passing-On’, such as the purely
metempsychotic, which preserves the Inner Catena of Witchblood.

There is also the Eroto-inductive
means, which is only used once by an Initiator in his or her lifetime in order to pass on not only the
‘Power’ of the Tradition, but also a certain secret authority. According to custom the worthy Initiate must
be of the opposite gender, thus ensuring the alternation of masculine and feminine emphasis in the teachings, and also engendering the ‘Children of the Elder Gods’ — those sired in the precincts of the Sabbatic
Conclaves.

It is also important to point out another aspect of my own work, because it bears upon the relevance of the Zos Kia Cultus and the work of future adepts within these Mysteries. This is the matter of the
individual Initiate’s responsibility, not only to preserve the lineage and its lore, but also to refine, expand
and sublimate it in accordance with personal vision and predilection.

Zos, in his formulations within The
Witches’ Sabbath and in his Grimoire of Zos, transmuted the Sabbatic Lore as a natural consequence of
his own artistry, but nonetheless did not detract from its Corpus of Wisdom. What his words do not impart his pictures most assuredly do.

Likewise in my own recension of the Tradition within The Azoёtia, A
Grimoire of the Sabbatic Craft (From Azoth, Zoa, Azoa, et al.; hence Quintessence, Life and Death, and
cognate ideas) I have redefined the Body of Sabbatic Lore and have sought to reconstruct the entire
framework of the Tradition in accordance with its present aim of reifying the Quintessential Current of
All Magick.

Certainly the work reflects my personal vision, but the ‘Lore’ encoded therein is a direct ’re-enfleshing’ of the Tradition as a Whole, drawing in strands of symbolism and technique from many paths
to achieve their focus within the Quintessential-Azoёtic Current. Thus having focused the Gnosis of the
High Sabbat upon the inner as a repository for the Unifying Current of the Magick of All Aeons, the task
is now to reciprocate this upon the Outer.

The Book Azoёtia is the Telluric Point of Ingress in the reification of the Quintessential Current. It
is the ‘Living Truth’, the Very Flesh of the Initiates, which is the Gateway through which the Mighty
Dead of Witchblood will once more “go forth in Shadow and in Light upon the Earth”.

The Book is only
a visible means to read from and thereby gain access, through the subtleties of symbolic inference and
psychic perichoresis, to the Great Unwritten Grimoire of Magick which is the ‘True Form’ of the Azoёtia.

As Present Magister of the Cultus Sabhati, I have initiated this Work in accordance with both the principle of preserving the integral Body of the Teachings and the ethos of their perpetual refinement. This is
not straightforward, nor is it a light responsibility; one must ensure that whatever one adds or subtracts
does not diminish, imbalance or conflict with the Harmony of the Totality. This concerns all who are at
present conjoined in similar endeavours within the field of the Arcane; with all due honour I express my
blessings, gratitude and encouragement to those True Companions of the Way.

The Principal Methodology of the Sabbatic Arcana is Sorcery, and therefore it is necessary for me
to define what is meant by ‘Sorcery’ in this context. Its meaning as employed in the Cultus Sabbati is in
agreement with its correct definition via the roots of etymology: ensorcel/ensorcellment = encircle, meaning ‘to bewitch’ or ‘to bind by witchcraft’.

Hence this implies the method of ‘encircling’ or ‘binding’ as a
means of control and influence within the manipulative procedures of Magickal Power. It is usual for occultists to maintain a simple error of technicality to strengthen their practical ineptitude.

In the use of
‘Sorcery’ as a name for specific magical procedures the error of terminological inaccuracy is most common. The term is usually restricted to those operations which rely upon the use of material bases, or are
located strictly upon a fixed level of magical processes, i.e: — the Lunar/Sexual Strata Entity. The error
extends further, classifying the ‘Sorcerer’ as a Practitioner of ‘Black Magick’. Fortunately these errors are
half-truths.

Sorcery embodies the technique of ‘Binding’ as the means of controlling the Magical Forces, and
hence may best be defined via a definition of that technique:

The act of Binding is the deliberate limitation of a Force or State of Entity by Will, desire
and Belief, in order to give that Force or State of Entity a specific Form or Icon, and
hence give its Power a Focus and an intensity.

This definition is not restricted to any one level. It functions from the Highest to the Lowest Strata of Being; upon the Transcendental and Mystical Plane via the ‘Forms’ of the Elder Gods and the Abstract Magical Principles embodied in the Sacred Alphabet; upon the Intellectual Plane via the ‘eidos’ of the Gods
and Powers as ‘cogent principles of philosophical enquiry’ and as the ‘Ideas’ which specific god-forms
represent; upon the Emotional level via the sensory corollaries of the Sacred Letters; upon the psycho-
sexual level via the use of specific eroto-cognitive and orgiastic formulae; upon the mundane level via the
ritual iconography and the use of fetishistic bases to earth or manifest the Power Invoked; and upon the
atavistic level via the ancestral, totemic and elemental powers communicated with and used by the Practitioner as delegatory extensions of his present entity.

This only glosses over the Practice of Sorcery, but it clearly exemplifies its relevance to the Adept.
As defined in reference to the Azoetic Current, Magick is the Force Itself, the Transmutability of the
Quintessence (Azoth) of All Nature; and Sorcery is the Method par excellence of the Arte Magical used
to control that Force.

Its advantage is primarily its technical precision in working with the extremely specific nuances of the Magical Current, and yet maintaining the Sanctity of Mystery via their understanding
and control through the cryptogrammatical meta-language of the Sacred Alphabet.

The ramifications of
the system are complex and intricate, but it exists as an holistic ‘entity’. Its understanding should be undertaken not solely upon an intellectual or rational plane, but rather by ‘feeling’ an intuitive knowledge and
by virtue of sudden realization: a deep and tacit gnosis married to the lightning-swift illumination.

The notable distinction in the Sorcery of the Azoёtic Current is that it is ‘the Sorcery of the
Crooked Path’; it defines, refines and achieves its ends, and in doing so confronts the limits of Nature’s
own horizon. By the transilient dance of the Adept from the Old Flesh to the New Flesh he perpetually
reifies ‘That’ which he is not: the Body of Otherness.

He is thus not only the Gateway for the Returning
Dead but the Gateway for Those who are ‘Beyond’ and ‘Between’ the borderlines of Possibility. In consequence of this I give the following magical formulae, which I hope will serve as a precis of these ideas,
and if used as daily objects of contemplation will transmit and enflesh the Quintessential Current to the
‘Pure of Hand and Eye’.

Of these, The Soliloquy of Alogos should be used upon waking and The Exvocation upon retiring. This order should be changed around at the Full Moon and the New Moon.

The Soliloquy of Alogos

I: O’ Thou Sole Arcanum — Panphage, Pangenetor, Panfornicatrix,
who art the Wanderer within the Labyrinth of every Possibility.

A Cipher of Cryptograms concealeth the Metatheses of thy Name.

Thou hast no kingdom beyond Transciency,
who art exiled amid perpetual metamorphoses.

By this Sorcery of Will, Desire and Belief:
Thou art Here, this Very Moment: Enfleshed.

From this Form give forth the Necroloque:
the Death-Speech of Atavism.

Grant us the Immediacy of Our Futurities:
Transference between all Otherness.

Lead us to meet the Ever-coming Chaos with a tranquil embrace
and ennoble us with thy Solitude.

Spare us no Sensation:
That we may attain Gnosis within Ekstasis.

For Thine is this Illumination:
the Living Truth of I: NOW.

The Exvocation

I: O’ Thou Colossus of Phantasie,
who art the Mote and the Motion of All Creation,
the Ephemeral Masquerader of Chaos.

Ever-changing are thy Names;
All Names but no Name will suffice to call Thee.

Thy Kingdom is the Horizon that encircleth me.

By mine Inscrutable Sorceries,
Thou art Here, this Very Moment: Transvoked.
That the Circle lieth empty.

In this Void enflesh anew the Alogos of I.

Grant us the New Flesh: Protosarkia.
Incarnation to That which hath yet no nature.

Lead us not,
For we are the Path Itself.
The Sole Prae-determinant of That which shall Be: NOW.

“Wisdom for the New Flesh” by Andrew D. Chumbley, in “Starfire Journal Volume I Number Five” (1994).

“Gnosis For the Flesh Eternal” (1999) is an expanded version of this article, and appears in “Opuscula Magica Volume Two” (2011).