The Holy Guardian Angel is representative of one’s truest divine nature. The term is equivalent with the Genius of the Golden Dawn, the Augoeides of Iamblichus, the Atman of Hinduism, and the Daemon of the gnostics.
In the system of Magick, the single most important goal is to consciously connect with one’s HGA, a process termed “Knowledge and Conversation.” By doing so, the magician becomes fully aware of his own True Will. For Aleister Crowley, this event was the single most important goal of any adept:
“It should never be forgotten for a single moment that the central and essential work of the Magician is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Once he has achieved this he must of course be left entirely in the hands of that Angel, who can be invariably and inevitably relied upon to lead him to the further great step—crossing of the Abyss and the attainment of the grade of Master of the Temple.”
~ Magick Without Tears
Crowley became aware of the book entitled The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage from George Cecil Jones, a member of the Golden Dawn. The book describes the full procedure for “Knowledge and Conversation” and gave him the term “Holy Guardian Angel.” Crowley sums up the book in The Equinox of the Gods:
“The aspirant must have a house secure from observation and interference. In this house there must be an oratory with a window to the East, and a door to the North opening upon a terrace, at the end of which must be a lodge. He must have a Robe, Crown, Wand, Altar, Incense, Anointing Oil, and a Silver Lamen. The terrace and lodge must be strewn with fine sand. He withdraws himself gradually from human intercourse to devote himself more and more to prayer for the space of four months. He must then occupy two months in almost continuous prayer, speaking as little as possible to anybody. At the end of this period he invokes a being described as the Holy Guardian Angel, who appears to him (or to a child employed by him), and who will write in dew upon the Lamen, which is placed upon the Altar. The Oratory is filled with Divine Perfume not of the aspirant’s kindling.
After a period of communion with the Angel, he summons the Four Great Princes of the Daemonic World, and forces them to swear obedience.
On the following day he calls forward and subdues the Eight Sub-Princes; and the day after that, the many Spirits serving these. These inferior Daemons, of whom four act as familiar spirits, then operate a collection of talismans for various purposes. Such is a brief account of the Operation described in the book.”
Crowley felt that attaining Knowledge and Conversation was so important, that he staked the claim that any other magical operation was, in a sense, evil. In Book 4 (Ch. 21) he explains:
“As was said at the opening of the second chapter, the Single Supreme Ritual is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. It is the raising of the complete man in a vertical straight line…Any other operation is black magic…If the magician needs to perform any other operation than this, it is only lawful in so far as it is a necessary preliminary to That One Work.”
“There are, however many shades of grey. It is not every magician who is well armed with theory. Perhaps one such may invoke Jupiter, with the wish to heal others of their physical ills. This sort of thing is harmless, or almost so. It is not evil in itself. It arises from a defect of understanding. Until the Great Work has been performed, it is presumptuous for the magician to pretend to understand the universe, and dictate its policy.”
Crowley said that the Abramelin procedure was not the only way to achieve success in this endeavor:
“It is impossible to lay down precise rules by which a man may attain to the knowledge and conversation of His Holy Guardian Angel; for that is the particular secret of each one of us; as secret not to be told or even divined by any other, whatever his grade. It is the Holy of Holies, whereof each man is his own High Priest, and none knoweth the Name of his brother’s God, or the Rite that invokes Him.”
~ Book 4, One Star in Sight
The Adept will be free to concentrate his deepest self, that part of him which unconsciously orders his true Will, upon the realization of his Holy Guardian Angel. The absence of his bodily, mental and astral consciousness is indeed cardinal to success, for it is their usurpation of his attention which has made him deaf to his Soul, and his preoccupation with their affairs that has prevented him from perceiving that Soul.
The effect of the Ritual has been.
1. to keep them so busy with their own work that they cease to distract him;
2. to separate them so completely that his soul is stripped of its sheaths;
3. to arouse in him an enthusiasm so intense as to intoxicate and anesthetize him, that he may not feel and resent the agony of this spiritual vivisection, just as bashful lovers get drunk on the wedding night, in order to brazen out the intensity of shame which so mysteriously coexists with their desire;
4. to concentrate the necessary spiritual forces from every element, and fling them simultaneously into the aspiration towards the Holy Guardian Angel; and
5. to attract the Angel by the vibration of the magical voice which invokes Him.
Thelema (/θəˈliːmə/) is a religion based on a philosophical law of the same name, adopted as a central tenet by some religious organizations. The law of Thelema is “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will.” The law of Thelema was developed in the early 1900s by Aleister Crowley, an English writer and ceremonial magician. He believed himself to be the prophet of a new age, the Æon of Horus, based upon a spiritual experience that he and his wife, Rose Edith, had in Egypt in 1904.By his account, a possibly non-corporeal or “praeterhuman” being that called itself Aiwass contacted him and dictated a text known as The Book of the Law or Liber AL vel Legis, which outlined the principles of Thelema.An adherent of Thelema is a Thelemite.
The Thelemic pantheon includes a number of deities, primarily a trio adapted from ancient Egyptian religion, who are the three speakers of The Book of the Law: Nuit, Hadit and Ra-Hoor-Khuit. Crowley described these deities as a “literary convenience”.The religion is founded upon the idea that the 20th century marked the beginning of the Aeon of Horus, in which a new ethical code would be followed; “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law”. This statement indicates that adherents, who are known as Thelemites, should seek out and follow their own true path in life, known as their True Will.The philosophy also emphasizes the ritual practice of Magick.
The word thelema is the English transliteration of the Koine Greek noun θέλημα (pronounced [θélima]) “will”, from the verb θέλω “to will, wish, want or purpose.” As Crowley developed the religion, he wrote widely on the topic, as well as producing more ‘inspired’ writing that he collectively termed The Holy Books of Thelema. He also included ideas from occultism, yoga and both Eastern and Western mysticism, especially the Qabalah
Melek Taus is the androgynous and bi-sexual Peacock Angel (Ruling Spirit) of the Moon, the Kabbalistic Sphere of Yesod, and worshipped by the Yazidis (c.f. “Yesod”).
Since s/he rules the lunar sphere, s/he is prince/ss of the lunar and sublunar spheres.
“The Peacock Angel, as world-ruler, causes both good and bad to befall
individuals, and this ambivalent character is reflected in myths of his
own temporary fall from God’s favour, before his remorseful tears
extinguished the fires of his hellish prison and he was reconciled with
God”.
The sphere of Yesod is associated with imagination, dreams, the “unconscious” and the underworld. The Hebrew word סוד (”Yesod”) means “foundation”. One interpretation of this name is that Imagination is the Foundation on which the Kingdom of the Four Elements and Matter (Malkuth) is built.
Commenting circa 1919 on the first chapter of “The Book of the Law” (Liber AL vel Legis), Aleister Crowley wrote “Aiwaz
is not as I had supposed a mere formula, like many angelic names, but
is the true most ancient name of the God of the Yezidis, and thus
returns to the highest Antiquity. Our work is therefore historically
authentic, the rediscovery of the Sumerian Tradition”.
Artwork credits:
“False Color” image of the moon taken by the Galileo probe in 1992.
“Fascism is like Communism, and dishonest into the bargain. The dictators suppress all art, literature, theatre, music, news, that does not meet their requirements; yet the world only moves by the light of genius.”
It has been a very long time since I created this, but a post on the Pagan tag today reminded me of it. I thought it was time to trot it out again and let people get a kick out of it.
In case The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy has become a bit saccharine for you this season, let chronarchy’s animation of The Dance of the Thelemites prove a balm for your soul.
“1. Into my loneliness comes— 2. The sound of a flute in dim groves that haunt the uttermost hills. 3. Even from the brave river they reach to the edge of the wilderness. 4. And I behold Pan. 5. The snows are eternal above, above— 6. And their perfume smokes upward into the nostrils of the stars. 7. But what have I to do with these? 8. To me only the distant flute, the abiding vision of Pan. 9. On all sides Pan to the eye, to the ear; 10. The perfume of Pan pervading, the taste of him utterly filling my mouth, so that the tongue breaks forth into a weird and monstrous speech. 11. The embrace of him intense on every centre of pain and pleasure. 12. The sixth interior sense aflame with the inmost self of Him, 13. Myself flung down the precipice of being 14. Even to the abyss, annihilation. 15. An end to loneliness, as to all. 16. Pan! Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan!”
— “Prologue of the Unborn”. Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli (Liber VII)
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
The tangled grove, the gnarled 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.
I am Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan!
I am thy mate, I am thy man,
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, Maenad, man,
In the might of Pan.
Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan! Io Pan!
Liber Samekh – Theurgia Goetia Summa (Congressus Cum Daemone) Sub Figura DCCC being the Ritual employed by the Beast 666 for the Attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel during the Semester of His performance of the Operation of the Sacred Magick of ABRAMELIN THE MAGE.Prepared An XVII Sun in Virgo at the Abbey of Thelema in Cephalaedium by the Beast 666 in service to FRATER PROGRADIOR
Occult Aspects 