Travelling in the Spirit Vision

Atu XXI. The Universe 

An Atu is to be chosen and placed upon the Altar and Magick Incense of the Atu sacrificed. 

The Magician is to perform the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram or the Thelemic Lesser Banishing of the Pentagram. Purification and consecration of the Temple. Purification and consecration of the Atu followed by the Casting the Spell of the Atu. 

Make the Sign of Horus and recite: I tread upon the High! I tread upon the Firmament of Nu! I raise the Flashing Flame with the lighting of mine eye, ever rushing onwards in the splendour of the daily glorified Ra giving mine life to the Dwellers of the Earth. I rise, I rise like the Hawk of Gold! Make the Sign of Abrahadabra: ABRAHADABRA. Make the Sign of the Rending of the Veil. 

The Magician is to assume āsana and perform the Gnostic Trance and then with the Fixed Gaze stare at the Atu upon a black background for half a minute to maximum 1 minute. Abruptly close the eyes and subject the Atu to dhāraṇā within an arch of the corresponding colour with the Sign of the Atu upon the keystone. After a few seconds when the object of dhāraṇā begins to slide into the Astral Vision with flashes of colour beginning to appear astrally vibrate the Names until the object of dhāraṇā becomes more transparent as if a window unto the Astral Plane. The Magician is to gaze through and beyond the Atu and witnessing it increasing in size when gazing through and beyond and moving through the Atu like moving through a door being a sensation akin to floating. Upon entry the object of dhāraṇā should be behind and the Magician should feel being inside the Atu bearing witness to the symbolic imagery, Esoteric Image, and other correspondences. Travel the Astral Plane in the Spirit Vision. All encounters with Spirits, Symbols, and all other Elements must be greeted and tested with Signs and Names. The Magician may also want to summon an Astral Guide by applying the Peripheral Vision astrally and vibrate the Name astrally too once or twice. All experiences, even nothingness, are to be received unassuaged of purpose and delivered from the lust of result. For the Aspirant, to act out and imagine what experiences might unveil if it was to manifest at this point is perfectly fine. Upon return travel on the same path and make the Sign of the Closing of the Veil. Make the Sign of Harpocrates. Perform the Qabalistic Cross or Qabalistic Ankh.

Hell, Lunar and Starlit

Jean-Édouard Dargent, Les Vapeurs de la Nuit, 1899.

A Spirit of Fire drenched in gloomy tears,

Shadows dancing around the flames

Revealing sealed secrets through flickering candlelight,

Intoxicating the senses, a seduction of the evernight.

Lustfully La Luna illuminates I,

Who sheds like the Le Serpent Rouge,

And calls her fiendish lovers to blow the horn,

Unleashing a beautiful beast that is to be born.

Naked I am before the fiery lake,

Seeing the Heavens torn asunder

Where Hell is now a starlit lunar reflection

Of a kingdom of shady silhouettes seeking perfection.

The Whispering of the Stormchoir

Georges Jules Victor Clairin, La Grande Vague, 1893-1898.

As the Dawn danced with maidens and mist,

The blackened waves raged a noble war

And stormed the walls of mythical mountains,

Drowning the empty and drought fountains.

From above rained down passion and blood

Drowning Angels in a darksome flood,

As forgotten lovers of a mystic’s night

Lay waste and murder, desecrating light.

Exiled fiends rape and ruin

And Cherubs blow their ivory horns,

The saddened sound of an apocalyptic retreat

Bringing the Heavenly cavalcade, to death and defeat.

The distant Stormchoir softly whispers

The birth of a City and Palace, Temple and Shrine,

As the winds blow, and Earth ordains a King

Of Pathos and Grace, for whom the stars shall sing.

Hail, the ancient Triarchy of the Lost Lovers

Of the star-lit sky, the dreamlovers’ bed,

For their land shall shine moonrisen from the frost

To embrace what was in the light, asleep and lost.

Theurgy, Theophany, and the Mundus Imaginalis

Carlos Schwabe, Le Destin, 1897.

The manifested dynamic cosmos, populated with myriads of occult correspondences, mythic realities, and host of non-material beings, exists on various levels of perception, with the senses perceiving the world, the active imagination the soul, and the daemonic consciousness through the intellect (The ‘intellect’ in this case is to be understood in the Platonic sense of the pre-conceptual knowing as described by Iamblichus). As the active imagination conveys events of the cosmos through images, the very act of imagining is in a sense an act of theurgic union, if one is to treat the dynamic cosmos as divine and daemonic. Yet, it must be clarified in the most vehement manner that this sense of ‘active imagination’ is very different from the modern view of reality where ‘imagination’ is merely a mode of separating one’s state of mind from ‘everyday’ mental perceptions and processes. In a state of active imagination, corporeal reality, which we conceive as being ‘real’, is in fact enveloped and consumed by the reality of the pure forces of the cosmos, and is determined by it. To quote Tom Cheetham, “it is the mode of being, the mode of Presence, of the human person that determines the nature of time, not the other way round” (Cheetham, 2003, page ?). 

According to Henry Corbin, the active imagination partakes, dwells, and embodies the mundus imaginalis, which is the mesocosm of visionary revelation and events that experienced more vividly real that mundane reality. This is a place of constant metaphysical experience, theophanic visions, meditative consciousness, ritual gesture, contemplative prayer, artistic inspiration, and the sensations of eros. The function of the active imagination transmutes sensible forms into living symbols, and as Corbin writes:

The active imagination guides, anticipates, molds sense perception, that is why it transmutes sensory data into symbols. The Burning Bush is only a brushwood fire if it is merely perceived by the sensory organs. In order that Moses may perceive the Burning Bush and hear the Voice calling him… an organ of trans-sensory perception is needed (Corbin, 1998, 80)... So that the intelligible realities perceived on the imaginal level may be reflected in the mirror of the senses and be translated into visionary perception… the vision of the angel does not emerge from the negativity of an unconscious, but descends from a level of a positively differentiated superconscious (Corbin, 1986, 265-265).

This is the theurgic endeavour of purification and liberation, the attempt to perceive traces of divine meaning behind appearances perceived by the senses.

The intensity of the active imagination that resonates throughout the mesocosm can create changes in the world, initiated through the occult correspondences of Indra’s net, transforming the possessor of such an active imagination into a divine creator who established the patterns from which material forms evolve. And as Angela Voss concludes, “what we call a miracle is the result of such a capacity to bring spiritual power to bear on matter and cut through the literal dimension of cause and effect” (Voss, 2007, 9). 

References:

Tom Cheetham, The World Turned Inside Out: Henry Corbin and Islamic Mysticism, 2003.

Henry Corbin, Alone with the Alone, 1998.

Henry Corbin, Temple and Contemplation, 1986.

Angela Voss, ‘Becoming an Angel: the Mundus imaginalis of Henry Corbin and the Platonic path of self-knowledge’, 2007.

Enchantment, the Emerald Mystery

Heinrich Lossow, The Enchantress, 1868.

Emerald vines and ivy mournfully wrap themselves around the remains of a once glorious marble temple. From lands beyond the horizon, believers would come in ecstatic procession to partake in the mysteries, inhale the scent of a midsummer’s night dream and to rejoice beneath the shimmering silver silhouette of Selene. Now those distant memories revealed themselves to the faery, mournfully waltzing to the euphony of the soft breeze, a nostalgic echo trickling alongside dim rays of sunlight through the untamed canopy of woodland delight. The all-embracing dusk descended upon the emerald glade, smothering it in the sweetness of the twilight’s moistly mist and casting ever-changing shadows that dance around and amidst his marble remains slumbering in her emerald arms. The constellation of the lovers smiled softly as they glimpsed through the darkened canopies and witnessed lost souls of undying memories joining the shadows in their alluring serenade of mystique and serpentine charm. And deep within the feverish forest, the lunar dryad awoken to hear their primeval laughter and poetic utterances of ecstasy and mischief as they slither to the drumming of the nocturnal pulse and the rhythm of Pan’s flute. The lunar crescent upon her brow and gemstones of jade her eyes, she now stood before the faery and her sorcery, revealing to her the secret of her name.

Enchantment, the Faery

Carlton Alfred Grant, The Fairy Circle, 1895.

Not far from emerald green foliage of the enchanted wood, where dreams and perils embrace each other as reflections of the constellation of the lovers, a lost faery casts circles. Seething with sensual rage she sets ablaze the damp grains of sand beneath a dark and dreary Brythonic sky. Her scars are still bleeding, for the dryads of the enchanted wood were not kind to her or her sorcery. For it is forbidden to mortals and immortals alike to take beyond the wood the Emerald Mystery. And from beyond the sea she calls upon her host with her circles to storm the enchanted wood and take beyond the wood and across the sea that Emerald Mystery.

Many had ventured into that wood, lured in by the dying whispers of crucified sirens promising haven, the intoxicating incense of violet roses, and the mesmerising visage of the luscious foliage sparkling in the twilight of dusk. The fate of those shall always remain unknown. Some witches’ tales speak of these sorrowful souls being petrified and decorating the gardens of the pleasure palaces, tormented by their yearning and unfulfilled to taste the forbidden fruit. Other tales speak of horrific sacrifices upon pagan altars, which even poets fear to sing of. However some more wise speak of an overwhelming sensation, akin to that of the Elysian Fields, where these souls wander in the eternal bliss of enstasis defying the guilty innocence of time and partaking in worship of some immanent transcendence. Yet the faery, cursed and bleeding she now is, has seen the majesty and mystique of the lovers of the Emerald Mystery, and now summons the dark and dreary Brythonic sky to cast a shadow over the vigilance of Selene and Hypnos to bind all those who stand against her as colossal fiends.