12 Occultism
15 Aleister Crowley
13 Liber ABA
3 Magick Without Tears
3 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
1.02 - Pranayama, Mantrayoga, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Any sentence may be used as a mantra, and possibly the Hindus are correct in thinking that there is a particular sentence best suited to any particular man. Some men might find the liquid mantras of the Quran slide too easily, so that it would be possible to continue another train of thought without disturbing the mantra; one is supposed while saying the mantra to meditate upon its meaning. This suggests that the student might construct for himself a mantra which should represent the Universe in sound, as the Pantacle
footnote: See Part II.
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1.04 - The Paths, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Cup, Pantacle, and Sceptre, while in his right hand he holds
an upraised wand. He points to the ground with his left hand, thus affirming the magical formula that " that which is above is like unto that which is below ". Above his head, as an aureole or nimbus, is , the mathematical sign of infinity. Since Mercury and Thoth are the Gods of Wisdom and Magick, it is plain that this card is a harmonious attri bution.
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1.07 - The Literal Qabalah (continued), #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
The names of the suits, too, are descriptive to a very large extent of the nature of the Worlds. The Wand is the magical symbol of the Creative Will which evolves the original archetypal ideas in Olam Atsilus. They are pro- jected into Olam Brink, the Creative World, symbolized by the Cups. The Cup obviously is a feminine symbol, passive, and receptive, eager to receive the male influence from on high. The Sword relates to the Formative Plane, since the sword cuts, forms, and hews. The Pantacles, being formed of wax - a symbol of earth, passive and inert - symbolize the World of Action and matter, wherein the forces of the more transcendent planes have their field of manifestation.
Only one word of caution is here required. It must not be supposed that these Worlds are above one another in space or time. Such is not the Zoharic idea. This is one of the main drawbacks of diagrammatic representations. They are realms of consciousness each having an appropriate vehicle of matter, some more subtile, others more dense, than the other. Blavatsky states that they are " in co- adunition but not in consubstantiality The implication of this rather formidable phrase is that their substance is not of the same degree of density, although spatially they may occupy the same position. The distinction, however, is of quality of matter, not of position in space.
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1.08a - The Ladder, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Pantacle. The Wand is the terrestrial symbol of his God- like Will, Wisdom, and Creative Word, his divine force - just as the Sword is his human force, the sharp analytical faculty of the Ruach. It is the mind which is his mechanism for dealing symbolically with impressions, and his capacity for criticism. The Cup is his Understanding, the passive aspect of his Will ; it links him with That which is beyond, on the negative side, being hollow and receptive of the influence descending from on high. The Pantacle is flat, the temple of his Holy Ghost ; of the earth earthy, it is his lower nature, his body. On the altar is a phial of Oil, his aspiration towards a nobler self, towards a higher reality, consecrating him and all it touches to the performance of the
Great Work. Three other weapons surround the oil, the
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and Pantacle
The Qabalists suggest reflection on the nature of the symbolism of the magical weapons. There is, of course, the
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It is the task, also, at this time to construct a Pantacle
154 A GARDEN OF POMEGRANATES
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1.20 - Talismans - The Lamen - The Pantacle, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
object:1.20 - Talismans - The Lamen - The Pantacle
class:chapter
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Talismans: The Lamen: The Pantacle
Cara Soror,
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Really you comfort me when you turn from those abstruse and exalted themes with which you have belaboured me so often of late to dear cuddlesome little questions like this in our letter received this morning: "Do please, dear Master, give me some hints about how to make Talismans (that's the same as Telesmata, isn't it? Yes, 666) and the Pantacle. The official instructions are quite clear, of course;[29] but somehow I find them just a little frightening."
Well, I think I know pretty well what you mean; so I will try to imitate the style of Aunt Tabitha in "The Flapper's Fireside."
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The Pantacle is often confused with both the others; accurately, it is a "Minutum Mundum", "the Universe in Little"; it is a map of all that exists, arranged in the Order of Nature. There is a chapter in Book 4, Part II, devoted to it (pp. 117 - 129); I cannot make up my mind whether I like it. At the best it is very far from being practical instruction. (The chapter on the Lamen, pp. 159 - 161, is even worse.)
An analogy, not too silly, for these three; the Chess-player, the Openings, and the Game itself.
But you will object why be silly at all? Why not say simply that the Lamen, stating as it does the Character and Powers of he wearer, is a dynamic portrait of the individual, while the Pantacle, his Universe, is a static portrait of him? And that, you pursue flattering, is why you preferred to call the Weapon of Earth (in the Tarot) the Disk, emphasizing its continual whirling movement rather than the Pantacle of Coin, as is more usual. Once again, exquisite child of our Father the Archer of Light and of seaborn Aphrodite, your well-known acumen has "nicked the ninety and nine and one over" as Browning says when he (he too!) alludes to the Tarot.
As you will have gathered from the above, a Talisman is a much more restricted idea; it is no more than one of the objects in his Pantacle, one of the arrows in the quiver of his Lamen. As, then, you would expect, it is very little trouble to design. All that you need is to "make considerations" about your proposed operation, decide which planet, sign, element or sub-element or what not you need to accomplish your miracle.
As you know, a very great many desirable objects can be attained by the use of the talismans in the Greater and Lesser Keys of Solomon the King; also in Pietro di Abano[30] and the dubious Fourth Book of Cornelius Agrippa.[31]
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Then there are the Elemental Tablets of Sir Edward Kelly and Dr. John Dee. From these you can extract a square to perform almost any conceivable operation, if you understand the virtue of the various symbols which they manifest. They are actually an expansion of the Tarot. (Obviously, the Tarot itself as a whole is a universal Pantacle forgive the pleonasm! Each card, especially is this true of the Trumps, is a talisman; and the whole may also be considered as the Lamen of Mercury. It is evidently an Idea far too vast for any human mind to comprehend in its entirety. For it is "the Wisdom whereby He created the worlds.")
The decisive advantage of this system is not that its variety makes it so adaptable to our needs, but that we already posses the Invocations necessary to call forth the Energies required. What is perhaps still more to the point, they work without putting the Magician to such severe toil and exertion as is needed when he has to write them out from his own ingenium. Yes! This is weakness on my part, and I am very naughty to encourage you to shirk the hardest path.
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May I close with a stray example or so? Equinox III, 1, has the Neophyte's Pantacle of Frater O.I.V.V.I.O.[32] The Fontispiece of the original (4 volume) edition of Magick, the colors vilely reproduced, is a Lamen of my own Magick, or a Pantacle of the Science, I'm sure I'm not sure which![33]
Most of my Talismans, like my Invocations, have been poems.[34] This letter must be like the Iliad in at least one respect: it does not end; it stops.
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1.23 - Improvising a Temple, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
The Disk. This ought to be of pure gold, with your own Pantacle, designed by yourself after prolonged study, graved thereupon. While getting ready for this any plain circle of gold will have to serve your turn. Quite flat, of course. If you want a good simple design to go on interim, try the Rosy Cross or the Unicursal Hexagram.
So much for the Weapons! Now, as to your personal accoutrements, Robe, Lamen, Sandals and the like, The Book of the Law has most thoughtfully simplified matters for us. "I charge you earnestly to come before me in a single robe, and covered with a rich headdress." (AL I, 61) The Robe may well be in the form of the Tau Cross; i.e. expanding from axilla to ankle, and from shoulder to whatever you call the place where your hands come out. (Shape well shown in the illustration Magick face p. 360). You being a Probationer, plain black is correct;[38] and the Unicursal Hexagram might be embroidered, or "applique" (is it? I mean "stuck on"), upon the breast. The best head-dress is the Nemyss: I cannot trust myself to describe how to make one, but there are any number of models in the British Museum, on in any Illustrated Hieroglyphic text. The Sphinx wears one, and there is a photograph, showing the shape and structure very clearly, in the Equinox I, 1, frontispiece to Supplement. You can easily make one yourself out of silk; broad black-and-white stripes is a pleasing design. Avoid "artistic" complexities.
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1.55 - Money, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
And the Fourth is the H final, the Daughter, Earth, the Disk, Pantacle, or Coin the Coin on which is stamped the effigy of the Word that begat it with the aid of the other forms of Energy. It is the Princess of the Tarot of whom it is written: "Great indeed is her power when thus firmly established."
It is a trite, and not quite true, saying that money can buy nothing worth having. But it can comm and service, the real measure of power, and leisure; without these two advantages the most brilliant genius is practically paralysed. It can do much to secure health, or to restore it. The truth is that money is only troublesome when one begins to count it.
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2.02 - The Circle, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
10:These nine lamps were originally canldes made of human far, the fat of enemies1 slain by the Magician; they thus served as warnings to any hostile force of what might be expected if it caused trouble. To-day such candles are difficult to procure; and it is perhaps simpler to use beeswax. The honey has been taken by the Magician; nothing is left of the toil of all those hosts of bees but the mere shell, the fuel of light. This beeswax is also used in the construction of the Pantacle, and this forms a link between the two symbols. The Pantacle is thefood of the Magus; and some of it he gives up in order to give light to that which is without. For these lights are only apparently hostile to intrusion; they serve to illuminate the Circle and the Names of God, and so to bring the first and outmost symbols of initiation within the view of the profane.
11:These candles stand upon pentagrams, which symbolize Geburah, severity, and give protection; but also represent the microcosm, the four elements crowned by Spirit, the Will of man perfected in its aspiration to the Higher. They are placed outside the Circle to attract the hostile forces, to give them the first inkling of the Great Work, which they too must some day perform.
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2.07 - The Cup, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
15:The Cup can hardly be described as a weapon. It is round like the Pantacle - not straight like the wand and the dagger. Reception, not projection, is its nature. footnote: As the Magician is in the position of God towards the Spirit that he evokes, he stands in the Circle, and the spirit in the Triangle; so the Magician is in the Triangle with respect to his own God.
16:So that which is round is to him a symbol of the influence from the higher. This circle symbolizes the Infinite, as every cross or Tau represents the Finite. That which is four square shows the Finite fixed into itself; for this reason the altar is foursquare. It is the solid basis from which all the operation proceeds. One form footnote: An ugly form. A better is given in the illustration. of the magical cup has a sphere beneath the bowl, and is supported upon a conical base.
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2.08 - The Sword, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
As the Wand is Chokmah, the Will, "the Father," and the Cup the Understanding, "the Mother " Binah; so the Magick Sword is the Reason, "the Son," the six Sephiroth of the Ruach, and we shall see that the Pantacle corresponds to Malkuth, "the Daughter."
The Magick Sword is the analytical faculty; directed against any demon it attacks his complexity.
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One might say that the Pantacle is the bread of life, and the Sword the knife which cuts it up. One must have ideas, but one must criticize them.
The Sword, too, is that weapon with which one strikes terror into the demons and dominates them. One must keep the Ego Lord of the impressions. One must not allow the circle to be broken by the demon; one must not allow any one idea to carry one away.
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2.09 - The Pantacle, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
object:2.09 - The Pantacle
class:chapter
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CHAPTER IX:THE Pantacle
1:AS the Magick Cup is the heavenly food of the Magus, so is the Magick Pantacle his earthly food.
2:The Wand was his divine force, and the Sword his human force.
3:The Cup is hollow to receive the influence from above. The Pantacle is flat like the fertile plains of earth.
4:The name Pantacle implies an image of the All, omne in parvo; but this is by a magical transformation of the Pantacle. Just as we made the Sword symbolical of everything by the force of our Magick, so do we work upon the Pantacle. That which is merely a piece of common bread shall be the body of God!
5:The Wand was the will of man, his wisdom, his word; the cup was his understanding, the vehicle of grace; the Sword was his reason; and the Pantacle shall be his body, the temple of the Holy Ghost.
6:What is the length of this Temple?
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12:There is, therefore, nothing moveable or immovable under the whole firmament of heaven which is not included in this Pantacle, though it be but "eight inches in diameter, and in thickness half an inch."
13:Fire is not matter at all; water is a combination of elements; air almost entirely a mixture of elements; earth contains all both in admixture and in combination.
14:So must be be with this Pantacle, the symbol of Earth.
15:And as this Pantacle is made of pure wax, do not forget that "everything that lives is holy."
16:All phenomena are sacraments. Every fact, and even every falsehood, must enter into the Pantacle; it is the great storehouse from which the Magician draws.
17:"In the brown cakes of corn we shall taste the food of the world and be strong."1 1 We have avoided dealing with the Pantacle as the Paten of the Sacrament, though special instructions about it are given in Liber Legis. It is composed of meal, honey, wine, holy oil, and blood.
18:When speaking of the Cup, it was shown how every fact must be made significant, how every stone must have its proper place in the mosaic. Woe were it were one stone misplaced! But that mosaic cannot be wrought at all, unless every stone be there.
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28:History and geography he can pick up as he wants them; and what should interest him most in any subject is its links with some other subject, so that his Pantacle may not lack what painters call "composition."
29:He will find that, however good his memory may be, ten thousand impressions enter his mind for every one that it is able to retain even for a day. And the excellence of a memory lies in the wisdom of its selection.
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31:All Pantacles will contain the ultimate conceptions of the circle and the cross, though some will prefer to replace the cross by a point, or by a Tau, or by a triangle. The Vesica Piscis is sometimes used instead of the circle, or the circle may be glyphed as a serpent. Time and space and the idea of causality are sometimes represented; so also are the three stages in the history of philosophy, in which the three subjects of study were successively Nature, God, and Man.
32:The duality of consciousness is also sometimes represented; and the Tree of Life itself may be figured therein, or the categories. An emblem of the Great Work should be added. But the Pantacle will be imperfect unless each idea is contrasted in a balanced manner with its opposite, and unless there is a necessary connection between every pair of ideas and every other pair.
33:The Neophyte will perhaps do well to make the first sketches for his Pantacle very large and complex, subsequently simplifying, not so much by exclusion as by combination, just as a Zoologist, beginning with the four great Apes and Man, combines all in the single word "primate."
34:It is not wise to simplify too far, since the ultimate hieroglypic must be an infinite. The ultimate resolution not having been performed, its symbol must not be portrayed.
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39:This great task of separating the self from the impressions or "vrittis" is one of the many meanings of the aphorism "solv," corresponding to the "coagula" implied in Samadhi, and this Pantacle therefore represents all that we are, the resultant of all that we had a tendency to be.
40:In the Dhammapada we read:
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41:The Pantacle is tehn in a sense identical with the Karma or Kamma of the Magician.
42:The Karma of a man is his ledger. The balance has not been struck, and he does not know what it is; he does not even fully know what debts he may have to pay, or what is owed him; nor does he know on what dates even those payments which he anticipates may fall due.
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72:How few are there who can look back through the years and say that they have made advance in any definite direction? And in how few is that change, such as it is, a variable will intelligence and conscious volition! The dead weight of the original conditions under which we were born has counted for far more than all our striving. The unconscious forces are incomparably greater than those of which we have any knowledge. This is the solidity of our Pantacle, the Karma of our earth that whirls us will he nill he around her axis at the rate of a thousand miles an hour. And a thousand is Aleph, a capital Aleph, the microcosm of all-wandering air, the fool of the Taro, the aimlessness and fatality of things!
73:It is very difficult then in any way to fashion this heavy Pantacle.
74:We can engrave characters upon it with the dagger, but they will scarcely come to more than did the statue of Ozymandias, King of Kings, in the midst of the unending desert.
75:We cut a figure on the ice; it is effaced in a morning by the tracks of other skaters; nor did that figure do more than scratch the surface of the ice, and the ice itself must melt before the sun. Indeed the Magician may despair when hie comes to make the Pantacle! Everyone has the material, one man's pretty well as good as his brother's; but for that Pantacle to be in any way fashioned to a willed end, or even to an intelligible end, or even to a known end: "Hoc opus, Hic labor est." It is indeed the toil of ascending from Avernus, and escaping to the upper air.
76:In order to do it, it is most necessary to understand our tendencies, and to will the development of one, the destruction of another. And though all elements in the Pantacle must ultimately be destroyed, yet some will help us directly to reach a position from which this task of destruction becomes possible; and there is no element wherein which may not be occasionally helpful.
77:And so-beware! Select! Select! Select!
78:This Pantacle is an infinite storehouse; things will always be there when we want them. We may see to it occasionally that they are dusted and the moth kept out, but we shall usually be too busy to do much more. Remember that in travelling from the earth to the stars, one dare not be encumbered with too much heavy luggage. Nothing that is not a necessary part of the machine should enter into its composition.
79:Now though this Pantacle is composed only of shams, some shams somehow seem to be more false than others.
80:The whole Universe is an illusion, but it is an illusion difficult to get rid of. It is true compared with most things. But ninety-nine out of every hundred impressions are false even in relation to the things on their own plane.
81:Such distinctions must be graven deeply upon the surface of the Pantacle by the Holy Dagger.
82:There is only one other of the elemental Instruments to be considered, namely the Lamp.
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2.10 - The Lamp, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
10:And the Divine Substance that was the Pantacle is no more; for the many has become the One.
11:Eternal, unconfined, unextended, without cause and without effect, the Holy Lamp mysteriously burns. Without quantity or quality, unconditioned and sempiternal, is this Light.
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2.15 - The Lamen, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
2:The modern Lamen, is, however, a simple plate which (being worn over the heart) symbolises Tiphereth, and it should therefore be a harmony of all the other symbols in one. It connects naturally by its shape with the Circle and the Pantacle; but it is not sufficient to repeat the design of either.
3:The Lamen of the spirit whom one wishes to evoke is both placed in the triangle and worn on the breast; but in this case, since that which we wish to evoke is nothing partial, but whole, we shall have but a single symbol to combine the two. The Great Work will then form the subject of the design.1
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5:The Pantacle is merely the material to be worked upon, gathered together and harmonized but not yet in operation, the parts of the engine arranged for use, or even put together, but not yet set in motion. In the Lamen these forces are already at work; even accomplishment is prefigured.
6:In the system of Abramelin the Lamen is a plate of silver upon which the Holy Guardian Angel writes in dew. This is another way of expressing the same thing, for it is He who confers the secrets of that power which should be herein expressed. St. Paul expresses the same thing when he says that the breastplate is faith, and can withstand the fiery darts of the wicked. This "faith" is not blind self-confidence and credulity; it is that self-confidence which only comes when self is forgotten.
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3.02 - The Formulae of the Elemental Weapons, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
The formula of the Pantacle is again of no particular use, for the
Pantacle is quite inert. In fine, the formula of the wand is the only
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3.08 - Of Equilibrium, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
ready to change into a Serpent, the Pantacle into the whirling
Svastika or Disk of Jove, as if to fulfil the functions of the Sword.
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3.13 - Of the Banishings, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
bound by the Oaths of its original consecration as such. Thus, if a Pantacle has
been made sacred to Venus, it canot be used in an operation of Mars; the Energy of
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3.14 - Of the Consecrations, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
earth; but earth itself may be employed as an instrument. Its function is solidification. The use of the Pantacle is indeed very necessary in some types of operations,
especially those whose object involves manifestation in matter, and the fixation in
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[115] or ones circle a Club. To win a woman, ones Pantacle may be a
necklace; to discover a treasure, ones wand may be a dramatists
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constructing and charging a Pantacle appropriate to the object; this
Pantacle would then causes a strain in the Astral Light such that the
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3.18 - Of Clairvoyance and the Body of Light, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
is (in fact) technically a Pantacle in the fullest sense of the word.
Let us consider some prominent examples of such systems. We
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3.19 - Of Dramatic Rituals, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
consecrate and charge a Pantacle by the communication by AIWAZ to the Scribe of
the Book of the Law, the Magician representing the Angel, the Pantacle being the
Book, and the person on whom the Pantacle is intended to act taking the part of the
Scribe.
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