Gnosticism & The "Real" World Part 7

Here I would like to once again quote from Tobias Churton's Gnostic Philosophy on page 325: "...Crowley headed for Sri Lanka in the hope of annihilating the universe that was his troubled mind. From Colombo, he wrote to Kelly: "I have chucked all nonsense, except a faint lingering illusion that anything exists. This (with my breathing practice [pranayama] should go soon." Crowley, for a season, became something that perhaps had never been seen before: a combination of neo-Egyptian novice-hierophant and a Buddhist. The Buddhist asserted the illusion of the very world the Egyptians deified."

It seems that by the end of 1901 Crowley realized two very important things even if his realizations were in the embryonic form at that time. 1.) He would have some part to play on the stage of this new century. 2.) Crowley-like other interesting and learned people born during the decade before and including his own (1870s) also seemed aware that Western civilization was about to undergo what would be the first of several convulsions.

Here I would like to go to Gnostic Philosophy on pages 328-329 again-speaking of Crowley's letters to Gerald Kelly: "They also give a picture of a strange outsider hanging on to reality, with all the bravado in the world, by the skin of his teeth. Six months later, he wrote to Kelly a letter full of suppressed guilt feelings, unsure of himself, frustrated. He had just met Kelly's very beautiful, but, by the standards of the time, wayward sister, Rose-a woman whom he would marry (to her family's initial dissatisfaction) within the month, in a fit of youthful impetuosity-in order, he thought, to get her out of an unwanted liason: "I have been trying since I joined G.D. (Golden Dawn) in '98 steadily and well to repress my nature in all ways. I have suffered much, but I have won, and you know it...Did your sister want to hear the true history of my past life, she should have it in detail; not from prejudiced persons, but the cold drear stuff of lawyers. And English does not always fail me. If your worst wish came true, and we never met again, my remembrances of you, with or without beard would, as you say, be good enough to go on. But I am ambitious. I hope one day to convince you that I am not only a clever (the 4tos have "mentally deformed") man but a decent and good one. Why must 9/10ths of my life: the march to Buddhism, go for nothing; the atrophied 1/1,000,000 always spring up and choke me, and that in the house of my friends?...All luck, and the greatest place in the new generation of artists be yours. So say Aleister Crowley, always your friend whatever you may do or say. Vale! till your Ave!"

----Strange Angels----

All of the suppressed or repressed material in Crowley's psyche would burst forth in a supernova of a psychic experience during his honeymoon in Cairo with Rose in March to April of 1904. This amazing episode in the life of Aleister Crowley began when his pregnant wife told him "they" were waiting for him. In some of his later writings, Crowley treated this odd statement as if he didn't know what Rose was talking about. However, many people think he knew exactly who Rose was referring to when she said "they." Crowley had been trying to make contact with his Holy Guardian Angel, his Genius or Augoides since 1899 at the very least-perhaps earlier. He had felt it was imperative to achieve contact with this being or these beings or entities if they did indeed exist.

Rose had some more news for Crowley the day after the "they" are waiting announcement. She added that this meeting was "all Osiris" and "all about the child." Crowley then performed a ritual-an "invoking" to seek the powers of Thoth (Hermes)-the Egyptian god of magic, writing, science and the judgment of the dead. By performing this ritual, Crowley hoped to receive the wisdom, insight and understanding of Thoth. Rose-who was experiencing clairaudience the next day, revealed that a particular power was trying to communicate to her husband-that it represented "Horus, whom thou offended and ought to invoke."

In Gnostic Philosophy on page 330: "Crowley later thought that the power of "Horus the avenger" with his character of "Force & Fire" (very much like Blake's Orc, child of freedom and rebellion) was precisely what he had been trying to avoid or suppress. He associated it with the martian tendencies of Mathers, whom he had been obeying in an almost masochistic fashion-and this obeisance went against his true nature that years of Plymouth Brethren conditioning made him repress. Horus, of course, is the avenger of his father's murderer; Set the sun in the south: symbolically speaking, the dark and hidden aspect of the unconcious...That Saturday's (19 March 1904) invocation achieved, Crowley wrote "little success." But Sunday's invocation was a real mind-blower. It was revealed that the Equinox of the Gods had come, "Horus taking the throne of the East and all rituals being abrogated...I am to formulate a new link of an order with the solar force."

Aleister Crowley was determined not to be hoodwinked in any way and thought of some tests for Rose, that were to make absolutely certain that it was indeed the god Horus whom she was "speaking for." One of the trials that Crowley devised for Rose was ingenious for its simplicity. They would go to the nearby Boulak Museum and walk by the various inscriptions that depicted the god in his many aspects. He was wondering if this was another false path as Rose passed by one after another without comment. Then-out of the blue-Rose pointed down a corridor to a stele (she could not see the image depicted on it), and said, "There he is!"

Crowley was very interested and when he got to the stele he saw the funerary inscription of the priest Ankh-f-n-Khonsu. On the priest's left, enthroned, was Horus in his form called Ra Hoor Khuit-the solar aspect of Horus. The goddess Nuit (the Egyptian sky goddess) was arched over the scene, and below her the winged globe of the god Hadit. The catalogue number of the stele-666-astonished Crowley. This was a number for the sun and a number that held special importance for him as it also represented his opposition to the Christian era.

Once again, I am indebted to Tobias Churton's Gnostic Philosophy: From Ancient Persia to Modern Times-pages 325 to 331 for this information for this article. Thanks again for all of your thoughtful and intelligent comments! Peace and be well to anyone stopping by!