7 May - (Earth) Liber LXV, 1:63
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63. Bacchus grew old, and was Silenus; Pan was ever Pan for ever and ever more throughout the æons.
Theme and variation.
Following the chain of being up the ladder, back to ultimate, all/un-manifest deity.A contrast: the first elemnt of which is immanent divinity incarnate in the cycles and transformations of time—compare Bacchus becoming Silenus with a similar statement than can be made about how Artemis grows a little older and becomes Selene, who grows a little older and becomes Hekate.
The second element is the all, Pan. Like Amoun, transcendent of the cosmos in any partial or limited sense. And like Amoun, Pan partakes of all things, is in fact the secret heart of Bacchus and Silenus, both. It's a temporal variation on the spatial 5 + 6 formula. Seeing Pan in all things, seeing the divinity in all things, is the equivalent of integrating the microcosm with the macrocosm, the great work. The Book of the Law: the consciousness of the continuity of existence...
Reading this passage I realize that a sense has been growing on me throughout this cycle of text. In some irrational and intuitive fashion, I associate this notion with the element Earth, which is part of the topic heading for each new posting. It's that Adonai is in fact all gods: Bacchus is Adonai, Silenus is Adonai, Pan is Adonai. My two fingers of neat scotch in the evening is Adonai.
Kether is in Malkuth...
Love and Will
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I don't remember where, but I remember reading how Pan is a figure even beyond Kether. Eternal and unchanging as opposed to Bacchus and Silenus. I'll have to look up as much reference as I can to establish this idea in myself as I lack technical data for analysis.
I do know that I get quite worked up chanting "IO Pan, IO Pan, IO Pan Pan Pan!" repeatedly. Probably because of the short and powerful sound of the "P", but I find it interesting.
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63. Bacchus grew old, and was Silenus; Pan was ever Pan for ever and ever more throughout the æons.
Ecstasy comes, and ecstasy goes. It isn't unchanging. The All, however, is unchanging. Even the ecstasy of the K&CHGA fades and changes as the being who attained it grows older. (That's how I interpret this at least.)
This verse also states that the All has been the same "throughout the aeons," which points toward the fact that each expression of "Spiritual Truth" is just one expression of it; none of these expressions are as eternal as the Unexpressed that is their root.
93, 93/93.
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@mojorisin44 said
"63. Bacchus grew old, and was Silenus; Pan was ever Pan for ever and ever more throughout the æons."
I usually avoid this but, every now and then, jumping straight to Crowley's commentary is the way to go because it's just so brilliant. Here is what he wrote on this verse:
@To Mega Therion said
"It knows that the lower types of intoxication were excitements, and end in stupor and senility. It demands the madness of Pan, the building up of every particle of its being into a single symbol to include All. This symbol is to combine the intelligence (omniscience) of Man with the omnipotence typified by horns, and the creative rapture of the leaping Goat. This Pan is not intoxicated, but wholly insane, being beyond distinction (Knowledge) as including all in itself; He is also immune to time, since whatever happens can only be within Himself; that is, all events are equally the exercise of His functions, and therefore accompanied by rapture, since He has included all possibilities in His unity so that any change is part of His life, an act of love under will."