Magick Without Tears

THE LEFT-HAND PATH 115 gall of the roc, and dissolved in the ink of the cuttle-fish, and perfumed with the deadly nightshade. This is thy wine, who wast drunk upon the wine of lacchus. And for bread shalt thou eat salt, 0 thou on the com of Ceres that didst wax fat! For as pure being is pure nothing, so is pure wisdom pure .. .l and so is pure understanding silence, and stillness, and darkness. The eye is called seventy, and the triple Aleph whereby thou perceivest it, divideth into the number of the terrible word that is the Key of the Abyss. I am Hermes, that am sent from the Father to expound all things discreetly in these the last words that thou shalt hear before thou take thy seat among these, whose eyes are sealed up and whose ears are stopped, and whose mouths are clenched, who are folded in upon themselves, the liquor of whose bodies is dried up, so that nothing remains but a little pyramid of dust. And that bright light of comfort, and that piercing sword of truth, and all that power and beauty that they have made of themselves, is cast from them, as it is written, "I saw Satan like lightning fall from Heaven." And as a flaming sword is it dropt through the Abyss, where the four beasts keep watch and ward. And it appeareth in the heaven of Jupiter as a morning star, or as an evening star. And the light thereof shineth even unto the earth, and bringeth hope and help to them that dwell in the darkness of thought, and drink of the poison of life. Fifty are the gates of understanding, and one hundred and six are the seasons thereof. And the name of every season is Death . (The Vision and the Voice, 14th Aethyr) And for his Work thereafter? So we enter the earth, and there is a veiled figure, in absolute darkness. Yet it is perfectly possible to see in it, so 1. I suppose that only a Magus could have heard this word.