Balder Ex-Libris

Author : Crowley Aleister (Crowley Edward Alexander)
Title : Liber LVIII Including An Essay upon Number
Year : 19**

Link download : Crowley_Aleister_-_Liber_LVIII.zip

THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON THE KING (Continued) Great as were Frater P.’s accomplishments in the ancient sciences of the East, swiftly and securely as he had passed in a bare year the arduous road which so many fail to traverse in lifetime, satisfied as himself was—in a sense—with his own progress, it was not yet by these paths that he was destined to reach the Sublime Threshold of the Mystic Temple. For though it is written, “To the persevering mortal the blessed immortals are swift,” yet, were it otherwise, no mortal however persevering could attain the immortal shore. As it is written in the Fifteenth Chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel, “And when he was yet afar off, his Father saw him and ran.” Had it not been so, the weary Prodigal, exhausted by his early debauches (astral visions and magic) and his later mental toil (yoga) would never have had the strength to reach the House of his Father. One little point St. Luke unaccountable omitted. When a man is as hungry and weary as was the Prodigal, he is apt to see phantoms. He is apt to clasp shadows to him, and cry: “Father!” And, the devil being subtle, capable of disguising himself as an angel of light, it behoves the Prodigal to have some test of truth. Some great mystics have laid down the law, “Accept no messenger of God,” banish all, until at last the Father himself comes forth. A counsel of perfection. The Father himself does send messengers, as we learn in St. Mark xii.; and if we stone them, we may perhaps in our blindness stone the Son himself when he is sent. So that is no vain counsel of “St. John” (1 John iv. 1), “Try the spirits, whether they be of God,” no mistake when “St. Paul” claims the discernment of Spirits to be a principal point of the armour of salvation (1 Cor. xii. 10). Now how should Frater P. or another test the truth of any message purporting to come from the Most High? On the astral plane, its phantoms are easily governed by the Pentagram, the Elemental Weapons, the Robes, the God-forms, and such childish toys. We set phantoms to chase phantoms. We make our Scin-Laeca1 pure and hard and glittering, all glorious within, like the veritable daughter of the King; yet she is but the King’s daughter, the Nephesch adorned: she is not the King himself, the Holy Ruach or mind of man. As as we have seen in our chapter on Yoga,2 this mind is a very aspen; and as we may see in the last chapter of Captain Fuller’s “Star in the West,” this mind is a very cockpit of contradiction. What then is the standard of truth? What tests shall we apply to revelation, when our tests of experience have been found wanting? If I must doubt my eyes that have served me (well, on the whole) for so many years, must I not much more doubt my spiritual vision, my vision just open like a babe’s, my vision untested by comparison and uncriticized by reason? ...