"I am the Magician and the exorcist."
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93,
Last night I watched "The Exorcism of Emily Rose", and suddenly gained some insight into a line from Liber AL that I have struggled with up until last night. "I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. "Come unto me" is a foolish word: for it is I that go." CCXX II:7. As I was watching the movie, I drifted off into a light daydream, where I was facing a "demon" (symbolic representation of an umbalanced facet of myself) and inscribed a banishing ritual in front of it to send it packing. Immediately after the line from Liber AL flashed in my mind. Now to me, the responsibility of the Magician is to master the elements (within in order to do so without) and in doing so, we "exorcise" those rigid, frozen, stagnant aspects of ourselves in order to bring that which is of need into balance and harmony. This helped me identify Hadit with the soul, the true life force within, "the axle of the wheel" constantly unravelling, evolving, ("the cube in the circle. 'Come unto me' is a foolish word, for it is I that go.) and magick as defined by Crowley as being the tool ("Abrahadabra; the reward of Ra Hoor Khut" Liber AL III:1) in which we arrive at evolutionary level we strive to attain. Hmmm...all of this sounded a lot better in my head
93 93/93 -
93 Ra,
"This helped me identify Hadit with the soul, the true life force within, "the axle of the wheel" constantly unravelling, evolving, "
Pretty nifty, I'd say.
93 93/93,
Fr. Z. T. (Live Wire/Tranquility Within)
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Yeah, lots of stuff sounds lots better until we start putting it into words, LOL!
That, though, is an actual work of talismanic magick: Encapsulating (on a best-expression-possible basis) an inarticulate experience or understanding into language and then giving voice to it. (The next step is then to act on it!) This is a step-by-step act of incarnation, or bringing something down the planes.
As to the sentence, I think I've never fully gone througth the steps you've gone through of articulating it that extensively to myself. The core of my understanding rests around understanding "Magician & exoercist" as "invoker and banisher" - two polar ends of a single wand.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
FWIW, here is an entry from my diary of the early '90s on the 73rd verse of Liber Legis, that is, Cap. II, v. 7:
"(v. 73) 7. I am the Magician and the Exorcist I am the axle of the wheel and the cube in the circle[.] Come unto me is a foolish word: for it is I that go.
We have already seen Him as related to a Mercurial idea; and here that becoems even more strikingly clear. The "Magician" is Beth, Mercury, and especially related to Yod, Virgo. The "Exorcist" is but the opposite side of that coin. And "axle" is, in Hebrew, Yod, the axle (both center and shaft, Kether and Chokmah) of the Wheel of Life or Wheel of Fortune.
The Magician is both Word and Will. He is also likely used here to represent the weaver of illusin, the formulator of Maya (see Liber Magi and Liber 418). "Magician and the Exorcist" are then the creator and banisher of a given reality, that which utterly defines and patterns reality by its passage &c.
I am less clear about "the cube in the circle." If this means the "cube within the sphere," then it refers to the Enochian model of the cubical Universe within concentric spherical Aethyrs. If "circle" is literally meant, however, then we have an altar within a magical circle, and a phallic stone or cube existing within the feminine symbol. "Cube" and "stone," of course, depict the object of the Great Work whereby"Father" and "Son" are seen as One (ABN). "Cube" also requires six sides, hence a solar (which also always means stellar) idea within the circle of Nuit, or (within the microcosm) of a given ego.
In any case, this "axle" and "cube" are both something at the center, and the "wheel" and "circle" are both circular or cyclical. Both express Centrum in Trigono Centri, and many ideas we have aleady associated with Hadit, including the phallic, creative, central, vital, &c.
The last sentence merely reiterates, perhaps more clearly, what we already have discovered. Unlike Nuit, He does not say, "Come unto me;" for it is He who responds to Her love-song. His nature is that of going, the essential nature of Deity. In this there is a marvelous pun; for we shall learn in v. 16 that His name may begin with a "V" and vadit is Latin for "He goes.""
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"The core of my understanding rests around understanding "Magician & exoercist" as "invoker and banisher" - two polar ends of a single wand."
WHOA! Never thought about it like that! The thing that blows my mind is the opposite operations of the one organism, and the inherently Godliness that indicates. To invoke and draw upon, to banish and cast away all being done by the same being. "Whooaaa, totally out there maaaaaan." -
The above notes, as indicated, were from diary entries in the early 1990s which were typed up and edited around 1995 EV. I have a lot of them transcribed online here: aumha.org/arcane/ccxx.htm (All of Chaper I - only parts of II and III.)
If interested, you might want to look at the remarks on the opening verses of Chapter II, from which the above was extracted. I just made sure that all of the opening verses were covered. (One of these days I'll get around to posting the whole thing - but retyping it is a bit laborious and other things keep needing attention instead.)
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so basically, the axle is the creative impulse, the wheel is that which is created...that which is created is cyclical and subject to the formula of IAO, birth, death, and rebirth...but the axle seems to be the Yod in the YHVH formula, Kether and Chokmah, facets of Hadit, or Vadit as you have eluded to, the infinite outpouring ('He Goes')...now cube in the circle...perhaps it does elude to the idea of the union of lingam and yoni which is necessary for creation, especially since Hadit and Nuit are in perpetual contact (being phases that exist above the TOL despite their manifestations in lower levels of the tree.)
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Yeah.
Although the cyclicity is much richer and more complete than IAO. (Although, on the other hand, that's a great shorthand for the three Gunas, which ultimately characterize everything else composing the wheel.)
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can you elaborate on the richness of the cyclicity?
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@Ra-Imhotep said
"can you elaborate on the richness of the cyclicity?"
It necessarily consists of every possible experience and potential experience that has been, is, or can ever be.
That's much richer than one highly specialized (and otherwise incomplete) three-phase rhythm, eh?
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Hmm, indeed
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@Ra-Imhotep said
"...now cube in the circle...perhaps it does elude to the idea of the union of lingam and yoni which is necessary for creation,"
There seems to be a direct analogy (which Jim's commentary may have touched on) with the previous symbolism in this verse: axle=cube, wheel=sphere/circle. The two opposites are working together harmoniously, but they're still opposites.
For some reason, though, I've felt there to be a link between the "cube in the circle" here in II,7 and the "circle squared in its failure" in III,47. The "squared circle" is a notorious impossibility from classical and medieval geometry. Might this point to above-the-abyss experiences where all paradoxes are "resolved" (i.e., where simultaneous "this" and "not-this" is just peachy)?
(And why isn't that cute "circle squared" symbol that Crowley sketched ever transcribed in any of the typeset versions of Liber Legis? Surely by now word processors can handle the "astrological earth" symbol!)
" especially since Hadit and Nuit are in perpetual contact (being phases that exist above the TOL despite their manifestations in lower levels of the tree.)"
I tend to cringe at "above the Tree of Life" stuff like the 3 veils of negative blah blah... as well as at interpretations of the qlippoth that are "below" the Tree. The way I learned it, the Tree is a rich enough symbol system to encompass all of these things within it. I find it very fruitful to think about Hadit and Nuit in Chokmah and Binah, respectively. (There was a related thread that touched on this recently...) Their perpetual contact is both their rootedness in Kether and the plain ol' path of Daleth.
"Above the abyss" is far enough from my day-to-day consciousness... I'm not going to start pondering about stuff that might be above the above until I'm much closer...
Sorry in advance if this was snarky. We all ultimately have to rely on our inner inspiration on these things.
Steve
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@Steven Cranmer said
"For some reason, though, I've felt there to be a link between the "cube in the circle" here in II,7 and the "circle squared in its failure" in III,47."
Though not necessarily developing it in the same direction as you, I've always had to fight the tendency to interpret "cube in the circle" as "square in the circle." I'm left to conclude that the essential circle-square metaphor is active in both instances.
"(And why isn't that cute "circle squared" symbol that Crowley sketched ever transcribed in any of the typeset versions of Liber Legis? Surely by now word processors can handle the "astrological earth" symbol!)"
Sure, but that graphic wouldn't work - the graphic in the ms. is "squared in its failure" (oh, my, I've just changed the style of seven letters <g>). A custom graphic would have to be created.
"I tend to cringe at "above the Tree of Life" stuff like the 3 veils of negative blah blah..."
I have no such reservation on that one, especially since I think the addition of (recognition of) the Zero is one of the key points pushed by Liber L. Nuit declares Herself specifically to be zero. WIth the importance of 11, I'm quite uncomfortable with the idea that "adding Da'ath" brikngs the Tree to 11, since Da'ath not only isn't a Sephirah but actually doesn't exist. (That's the whole point of it! <g>) Rather, I regard the 11 as the numbers 0 through 10.
"The way I learned it, the Tree is a rich enough symbol system to encompass all of these things within it."
I agree with this. But - pick A, B, or both
- (A) I see no reason not to consider the forms of 0 as part of the Tree. (B) Though rich enough to encompass everything, that doesn't necessarily leave room for it to encompass nothing. ("It don't got nothin' in it!")There's also (C) which, however, doesn't make for a good sound bite and, ultimately, is perhaps only a measure of perspective. The gist is that all the 0 ideas are included in 1 - that the Veils are an actual expression of Kether. Semi-long development which I've never written out in full because it seemed mostly an intellectual exercise (like working story problems or crossword puzzles to pass the time), and in an area of the Tree where intellect doesn't have much to do with anything.
"I find it very fruitful to think about Hadit and Nuit in Chokmah and Binah, respectively."
I use that as a starting point in giving people "root Mom & Dad" ideas, and occasionally dip in by analogy - I've also been known to use Yod and Heh, Sun and Moon, and other polarity variants (especially including Cross and Rose), for them - but I just can't fit everything about Nuit (for example) into Binah without a huge shoe horn. Also, one then has a particular burden in addressing why we bother with Babalon in the mix if Nuit is already going to have Binah covered. It's far easier to put in perspective IMHO by having Nuit as 0 - the infinite from which the 1 of Hadit emerges as a single example - and Babalon as her "lower octave" at Binah.
"Their perpetual contact is both their rootedness in Kether and the plain ol' path of Daleth."
There's even more inherent contact if the Point is a center of the infinite circle; and we still have the Babalon-Chaos or Babalon-Beast polarity for the opposite ends of Daleth. (One of my favorite pieces of minor gematria is that the Greek Babalon kai Therion is 434 - Daleth spelled in full.)
""Above the abyss" is far enough from my day-to-day consciousness."
Well, you've got a point there! In fact (as I regularly tell students) the closest most people can come to any idea of Kether is Tiphereth - if even that! (It's no surprise to me that the original G.D. 0-0 initiation formula only shows the floor up to Tiphereth. Add a Kether theurgic archetype in that place and it not only shows a pretty deep mystery in its own right, but foreshadows the "1-in-6" stuff that's at the root of most of the 5-6 ritual formula.)
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Squared Circle (Cube of Space):
Rama Prasad's "Nature's Finer Forces" seems to clarify the idea of the squared circle more than any alchemical text ever did for me (although I guess it technically is an alchemical text, albeit a clarification of the Hindu "science of breath," which here refers to the inspiration/expiration of all things, including the universe.) If you look at the tattvas, you have the basic shapes of existence. The shape of these tattvas explains their motion from consciousness to matter (magician) and from matter to space (exorcism?) The squared circle represents the "cancelling out" Crowley mentioned often in the 0=2, etc. The cancelling out process is described in pretty down-to-earth terms using different states of water to explain the processes of the 5 elements (space, air, fire, water, earth) and also happens to exactly follow the logic of Ophiel's Tree of Life, which is archived here: i36.photobucket.com/albums/e33/rolocoaster/tattwatreeoflife.jpg
There is also a cool breakdown of the creation of space and the sun, the Sun's creative energy; the two forces that pull things (like Earth) toward the sun, yet force it to spin a certain distance away based on the amount of space available, which creates the circlular earth, the atmosphere, spinning axis and magnetic polarities and the growth processes of all earth life. -
@Jim Eshelman said
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@Steven Cranmer said
"(And why isn't that cute "circle squared" symbol that Crowley sketched ever transcribed in any of the typeset versions of Liber Legis? Surely by now word processors can handle the "astrological earth" symbol!)"Sure, but that graphic wouldn't work - the graphic in the ms. is "squared in its failure" "
I'm not sure I understand. It's obvious that the "cross within a circle" doesn't satisfy the classical definitions of "squaring the circle" (since there's not even a real square there anyway). I've assumed that Aiwaz wasn't really trying to get Crowley to draw a squared circle per se -- but that the "failed" symbol he did draw had some meaning nonetheless. (Is the fact that it isn't a geometrically perfect circle or that it's not subdivided exactly into quarters important?)
Jim, in your commentary on the "Ordeal X" you inferred a graphical symbol where O and X are conjoined in a similar way to the symbol were talking about here -- might this be related?
We're getting far afield of the Magician and the Exorcist, though...
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"I tend to cringe at "above the Tree of Life" stuff like the 3 veils of negative blah blah..."I have no such reservation on that one, especially since I think the addition of (recognition of) the Zero is one of the key points pushed by Liber L. Nuit declares Herself specifically to be zero."
I didn't mean to dismiss the concept of the En Soph, which is valuable (to me) as a Western equivalent of the Brahman of the Upanishads. It's just that I often think of the Hadit/Nuit pair to be an ultimate expression of Duality, like Taoist Yang/Yin. It seems strange to see those concepts "above Kether."
"...but I just can't fit everything about Nuit (for example) into Binah without a huge shoe horn. Also, one then has a particular burden in addressing why we bother with Babalon in the mix if Nuit is already going to have Binah covered. It's far easier to put in perspective IMHO by having Nuit as 0 - the infinite from which the 1 of Hadit emerges as a single example - and Babalon as her "lower octave" at Binah."
I feel much more connected to the major quasi-Egyptian deities of Liber Legis than I do to Babalon/Therion (offices? avatars?), which many Thelemites seem to connect well with. I guess I'm guilty of nearly forgetting all about Babalon and the Beast as objects of worship...
Steve
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@Steven Cranmer said
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Steven Cranmer said
"(And why isn't that cute "circle squared" symbol that Crowley sketched ever transcribed in any of the typeset versions of Liber Legis? Surely by now word processors can handle the "astrological earth" symbol!)"Sure, but that graphic wouldn't work - the graphic in the ms. is "squared in its failure" "
I'm not sure I understand. It's obvious that the "cross within a circle" doesn't satisfy the classical definitions of "squaring the circle" (since there's not even a real square there anyway). I've assumed that Aiwaz wasn't really trying to get Crowley to draw a squared circle per se -- but that the "failed" symbol he did draw had some meaning nonetheless. (Is the fact that it isn't a geometrically perfect circle or that it's not subdivided exactly into quarters important?)"
I suppoise (come to think of it) that this is a personal interpretation - I'd always taken the "failure" to be that the cross was off-center and just generally drawn badly.
"Jim, in your commentary on the "Ordeal X" you inferred a graphical symbol where O and X are conjoined in a similar way to the symbol were talking about here -- might this be related?"
Every intuition I have says they are related, yes.
"I didn't mean to dismiss the concept of the En Soph, which is valuable (to me) as a Western equivalent of the Brahman of the Upanishads. It's just that I often think of the Hadit/Nuit pair to be an ultimate expression of Duality, like Taoist Yang/Yin. It seems strange to see those concepts "above Kether.""
Agreed on obvious duality, but I see it as a different kind - not the kind that shows up once number 2 is hit except in the 0=2 sense. We already have differentiation - infinite multiplicity - in the progression from Ayin to Ayin Soph - but that can't mean the same thing as our idea of 2 a couple of steps later.
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FYI, for those who haven't looked at the Liber L manuscript in a while, the symbol we're discussing is:
http://www.ashami.com/wiki/images/f/fb/Circlesquared.jpg
@Jim Eshelman said
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@Steven Cranmer said
"It's just that I often think of the Hadit/Nuit pair to be an ultimate expression of Duality, like Taoist Yang/Yin. It seems strange to see those concepts "above Kether.""Agreed on obvious duality, but I see it as a different kind - not the kind that shows up once number 2 is hit except in the 0=2 sense. We already have differentiation - infinite multiplicity - in the progression from Ayin to Ayin Soph - but that can't mean the same thing as our idea of 2 a couple of steps later."
Okay. My "Occam's Razor sense" still has trouble seeing the need for any differentiation above the tree proper, but I'll keep an open mind. (This "sense" is still honed on below-the-Abyss experiences!)
Would it be too simplistic to think about the 3 veils as a "higher octave" of the lightning flash through the 3 supernals?Steve
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@Steven Cranmer said
"Would it be too simplistic to think about the 3 veils as a "higher octave" of the lightning flash through the 3 supernals?"
That may be the best we can do for the intellect.
BTW, I never said the intellect would be able to have a ready (or even necessarily possible!) grasp of these. I think one of the more important services that the Veils provide is to keep before us the reminder that there is a realm of consciousness that (even on our best day) we can't begin to comprehend.
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93
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"I'm not sure I understand. It's obvious that the "cross within a circle" doesn't satisfy the classical definitions of "squaring the circle" (since there's not even a real square there anyway). I've assumed that Aiwaz wasn't really trying to get Crowley to draw a squared circle per se -- but that the "failed" symbol he did draw had some meaning nonetheless. (Is the fact that it isn't a geometrically perfect circle or that it's not subdivided exactly into quarters important?)"I suppoise (come to think of it) that this is a personal interpretation - I'd always taken the "failure" to be that the cross was off-center and just generally drawn badly. "
Then this line drawn is a key: then this circle squared in its failure is a key also
I always took this from a very simple perspective and never gave it any deeper thought. To me, the circle was the symbol of nature (as in Love), and the square was a symbol of the human mind (under will). And that the nature or Love part of the equation was overpowering the human intellect.
I have also thought that the two keys, "line drawn" and "circle squared" were somehow related.
93, 93/93
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@Draco Magnus said
"I have also thought that the two keys, "line drawn" and "circle squared" were somehow related."
Me too. The line passes through letters that add to 418. I take the circle and square as a variation of the Rosy Cross (but imperfect, not yet aligned, not sharing a common center, etc.). And the third key is Abrahadabra.
All three of these things - 418, Rosy Cross, Abrahadabra - really say the same thing.