Chapter V – The Mystery of Babalon and the Beast

The Beast, or Man of the Sun, represents, as I understand it, the Soul of Humanity, or of Man, between Spirit and Matter, ashamed of neither since both are essential to His existence. The Substance of the Sun descends upon Tiphereth from Binah through the Path of “The Devil”; its Life is transmitted from Chokmah through the Path of “The Sun”; it exists as a Spiritual Idea through the Channel of “Shin” which descends from Kether. Kether is its Final and Efficient Cause, Chokmah its Formal Cause and Binah its Material Cause.
“ON” is the Ancient Egyptian Word for the Sun; as long as we are prepared to go ON, all is well since we are in line with the natural urge of Evolution. But we may rise above the ordinary idea of Evolution into a consciously free co-operation with the Divine Purpose.
The numerical value of ON is 120. This is said to have been the Age of Christian Rosencreutz at the time he passed ON.
Those who try to reverse the process of evolution, to retreat or retrogress, saying “No” in their hearts, fall into Sin which is restriction, and therefore get themselves into trouble.
ON is formed of the Hebrew Letters Ayin and Nun, thus this idea arises at the junction of the Paths of “The Devil” and “Death”.
People of the “No” type arose on the other side of the Tree, on the Path of the Setting Sun. No may be spelled Nun, Vau, or NU, who was called the Father of the Waters, the reflector of Nuit.
However, we may look for a reconciliation of these ideas in the Path of “The Star” which represents the Sun at High NOON.
It was at High NOON that Parzival wrought the Miracle of Redemption, when the Spear and Cup were re-united. This Path unites the Spear of Will and Wisdom, Chokmah, with the Cup of Understanding and Intuition, Binah. The Father and Mother being thus united, the “One Star in Sight”, Har-Makhu, or Horus of the Star, is recognized in His True nature as the Spirit of the Concealed Light of Kether.
The Truth was never lost to the Supernal Triad, but the Supernals were lost to the sight of man. We may wonder how this could be, and the time is now ripe for its revelation. But before an attempt is made to explain this, it is best that we should glance at the remaining Paths of the Tree, below Tiphereth.
Let us consider the Path of “The Hanged Man”, sometimes called the Redeemer. Exoterically this Tarot Key is said to signify: “Enforced and not voluntary suffering”; while Esoterically it means “Self-sacrifice”, but not as usually understood.
ATUM or ADAM, as the first purely Human type or Soul, is said to have been Two-sexed until he became as Adam and Eve. Tiphereth is the True Son but the false Father.
When the representative Son at this stage became mistaken for the Father, many women followed Him, seeking redemption. Thus an embarrassing situation of “enforced and not voluntary suffering” might be supposed to have arisen. The only reasonable course of action would be a concealment of the facts and a teaching which might be inferred to imply “Chastity”, Celibacy, and other doctrines of repression. This is merely the exoteric view, but it accounts for the mistaken zeal of some who failed to understand the true teaching.
The Physical Sun is just as impotent to fertilize the whole Universe, although He may be entirely capable of attending to His own Solar System. He is all right in His place in the Order of the Universe; only when we misunderstand that place, do we fall into error.
The same trouble might arise in the case of a man who preached a doctrine of promiscuous sexual intercourse to a following of women; even were he a regular Lion he would be unable to supply the needs of an unlimited number and therefore be liable to attempt to retract his teaching.
The above instances could only arise on account of the lack of a true interpretation of the Word of the Justified One, Osiris arisen from Ammenti. Destruction is essential or there can be no renewal, and IU the twin-sexed supplies the answer if interpreted by means of “The Hierophant” whose Path crosses that of “The Hanged Man” and shows a reciprocal current between the Spheres of Venus and Mercury.
We have noticed how the twin-serpents “crossed over” below Tiphereth, and have studied the Symbolism rather fully. Having separated they must again re-unite in Yesod-The Foundation-and continue as One to Malkuth by the Path of Aleph, the Pure Fool.
We may now consider Malkuth, the Fallen Daughter, who, according to the Qabalah, in order to be redeemed must Unite with the Son, be raised to the Throne of the Mother, re-awaken the Father so that all things are re-absorbed into the Crown.
This process has been much misunderstood, it has been thought to imply a return to the Crown. The Mystics have all wanted to be re-absorbed into the Absolute. The Magicians, on the other hand, have tended to keep going ON, and to attempt to usurp the Throne of God, which rightfully belongs to the Mother.
Both met with a terrible Abyss, while working on the old methods.
The Magician traveled up the “Tree” till he came to Chesed as an Exempt Adept who had built up a wonderful system of knowledge, only to find the whole structure must be broken in pieces in the Abyss, if he hoped to Attain to true Understanding and Wisdom. Few passed this Ordeal.
The Mystics, on the other hand, being of the negative type, opened their minds and souls to the “light” and often mistook false lights for the True One. Having a very limited basis of experience as a foundation of their Pyramid, the Apex was proportionately low, and the Light they saw at that point, they attributed to their own pet divinity as their savior and redeemer. The Dawning of Solar Consciousness (Dhyana) tended to come as such a shock that most of these Mystics lost their balance for a time, if not for the remainder of their incarnation. If they went further, they were literally flooded with the Dark Forces of the Abyss. Some of these truly saw the Devil, and believed in him, and preached his existence to their followers. They certainly never say God.
Many of these people lived a very holy and chaste life, according to the standards of their time, before reaching this stage. Afterwards, the ignorant believed in them as men of good reputation, and were even content to “believe” without further desire for actual experience.
So we find a line of “Theorists” arose, under the guidance of “Partly Disillusioned” people who feared to go further and so taught a doctrine of Fear which is the forerunner of Failure, a doctrine of implicit belief in the leader of the movement, amounting in some cases to a “blind faith” in Substitutes, Reflections, Vicarious Atonement, and anything else but the necessity of working out their own Salvation. Yet there is an element of truth even in such apparently absurd notions as Vicarious Atonement; just as we found an element of truth in the doctrine of the Devil. Every man and every woman who Attains, make it just that much easier for the rest of Humanity to reach perfection. The whole Race must eventually Attain, for it is bound together by the closest ties, so that the process cannot be finally complete in the individual until the Last has become as the First in the Kingdom of Heaven upon Earth.
We seem far from that issue, but the Way is now OPEN, as before it was Closed, for Horus the Opener has taken his Seat in the East at the Equinox of the Gods.
But, to return to Earth, or Malkuth, as the Fallen Daughter. The true teaching, as I see it, is this. Malkuth, the Sphere of the Elements, or Matter, has been mistaken for the Planet Earth in place of All the Material Substance of the Universe in manifested form. Matter, as we should know, is continuous.
The Sun is the God of this world, its Physical Father, and as such he is worthy of our utmost respect and reverence. We do well to salute and recognize Him as Ra in the four Quarters. We “see” Him in the Rising, the Midday, and the Setting Sun; we “believe” in Him as the Sun of Midnight, our “heads” tell us that He is Osiris of the Underworld.
These are the old doctrines of the “Eye” and the “Head” transmitted to our subconscious minds from the Paths of “Ayin” and “Resh”. “Seeing is believing”, is a saying that held sway until the Scientists showed us we could not believe in the testimony of our senses. But the whole doctrine of the Birth, Death and Resurrection of the Sun or Son, was based on this dogma.
Also, just as of old the Sut-Typhonians tradition became despised, so Woman has been despised and held down by Man, by the son who had usurped the place of the Father. In this Man is truly a beast, and it required a Greater Beast, a practical living example, to show him his error, folly and wrong-doing. But man misunderstands and fears the Beast, who after all offers him the Secret of the Solar Pathway to the Stars. Why does he fear? The old Dark Tradition in his subconscious mind, holds him back. He fears to enter the Darkness of Night, lest he lose what little light he has therein. But this is the result of his limited earth-bound conception, which is quite un-scientific and gross.
If we truly believe in Osiris (or Christ) why should we fear to descend with Him into the Underworld? Jesus is said to have done so, before he rose again in Spirit to His Father in Heaven, thus uniting His True Self with the Invisible Central Star of the Universe.
Day and Night only exist for us on this Planet; the Sun does not travel round the Earth for our convenience. We, on this Planet, travel round the Sun, revolving as we go. Thus his Light only reaches certain parts of the Earth at any one time, and the rest of the Planet is in darkness. The Sun is always Shining, and if we come to consider things from the point of view of the Sun, we shall begin to shine too.
But the Sun, although Father of this Planet, is but the Son of the Great Mother, the Star Universe. Where then is the True Father? This is the question that puzzled the old Sut-Typhonians in the earliest times. The difficulty arose through the original Illusions of Time and Space, which have kept the World in ignorance since the last Golden Age. The Universe is Infinite in the Here, but men have tried to circumscribe it. The Infinite is ever present in the Now, but Men have looked backwards and forwards as if time were a line. There are Two Infinites, or conceptions of the Infinite, the Infinitely Great and the Infinitely Small. The extent of the One escapes us, the Present Moment of Pure Being escapes us. The Infinitely Great, is Nuit, Continuous Matter, Mother of the Stars. The Infinitely Small and un-extended point, is Hadit, the Inmost Essential Self of All, the Flame that burns in every heart of man and in the core of every Star. Both these are invisible to our Senses and Minds.
Since these are the Infinite, the Center is Everywhere and the Circumference Nowhere. Every point in Space is equally the Center of the Whole, there being no Limit. The True Father is Invisible, but the Center of all. Men called him “Father Time” but he is Father “Now.” The Now became extended as the Serpent of Time, Saturn, who tempted Eve, Matter, and caused the Fall but Now is the accepted Time, Now is the Day of Salvation. The Illusion of Space, on the other hand, made it difficult to imagine or find the Center; study the Stars as we would. Imagining a possible Limit, men failed to perceive how that Center could be everywhere present at the same moment of Time.
The Long Lost Father, Hadit, is the true Life of All, and the Eternal Energy of All. Matter and Energy can never be separated, one always merges into the other in a continuous and continual Marriage Union. The Universe, as we know it, or may come to know it through Spiritual Perception, is the Result of that Union, the Crowned Child in the fullest sense.
Men and women of this Planet may think of the Secret Father as the Sun, till they draw that Sun within the Heart, and look at things from His viewpoint. This is the Balanced and Harmonious conception of the Great Beast which is MAN. Then we realize that the whole Solar System revolves around Its Central Sun, and so on to Infinity. There is No Limit to the Expansion of Consciousness in the Here and Now, for Hadit, the true Father is Now in each one of us, veiled by the Light of the Sun of our being, His Manifest Son of Light. Truly the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, it will never be found outside amid the illusions of space and time. Those who have sought the Kingdom of Heaven within, have rejoiced therein; but that is an experience each must Attain for himself by Work. Let us then return to the general discussion of the subject.
We have said that Malkuth was mistaken for the Planet Earth, which she only is in a narrow sense. If united with the Son, or Sun, she begins to view the universe from His standpoint. Around her revolve the planets of the Solar System, of which Earth is one of the smallest. But it is said she must be raised to the Throne of the Mother from which she fell. She must be understood as the Original Substance, or pre-elemental matter. Also her throne is the Sphere of Saturn, the outermost of the (then known)planets. On reaching Solar Consciousness she must not imagine that she has arrived at the Goal. This is the mistake made by those who are obsessed by the results of Dhyana, the earliest Illumination. She must expand to the Rim of the Wheel, the Orbit of Saturn. She will gaze at the Great Zodiac, the Star Universe in Chokmah. She will seek to absorb this as the Father, her True Mate, and in so doing will Expand to Infinity as Nuit, The Ain, finding Kether, the True Father of Her Being, or Hadit, at Her Center, made Visible by the Extended Light of the Ain Soph Aur, which is Ra-Hoor-Khuit, the Lord of the Aeon. Having been assumed unto Heaven her effort will be to Contract upon the Center, and to Bring forth the Child. But she is Virgin, and the child is not born but “Ever Coming.” The Force and Fire of the Universe ever Expands within Her. Thus we may conceive of the Two Infinites multiplied in the Crowned Child.
All these Mysteries may be discerned Spiritually by the Children of Earth who have within them the Light of the Crown. Man, the Microcosm, the Little Universe, is like unto God the Macrocosm. This is the great Mystery. The Soul, Malkuth, is capable of taking into itself, Spiritually, all that is in the Macrocosm, until able to think the One Thought of God, which is the Universe itself.
The Animal Soul is that which perceives and feels, without it we may not perceive or feel the Joys of the Universe. Despised as the Fallen Daughter, it is our greatest Treasure, for it is The Kingdom of Heaven upon Earth. We may now understand the Mystery of Revelation, of the Woman Clothed with the Sun, becoming great with Child. How the Beast, tried to Devour the Child, and stop further progress, in order that he might continue to be Worshipped as the Lord of Heaven. How the Woman escaped into Egypt, or expanded to the limits of the Mother of Sut, the Orbit of Saturn and so on till the True Child was brought to Light within Her and the light of the Sun and Moon were no longer needed, for there was the Crowned Child in the Midst of the Holy City.
So we may learn, through the expansion of our consciousness to the conception of Babalon and the Beast, to pass ON to the Greater Conception of Nuit and Hadit, and obtain our heritage of Cosmic Consciousness, as the Crowned Children of the New Aeon. This was prophesied by the Beast Himself, who made it his life work to teach; “First obtain the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, the Higher Self, in Tiphereth the Kingdom of God in the Heart, and all things shall be added unto you.”
Is it not written in the Qabalah: “Kether is in Malkuth, and Malkuth is in Kether, but after another manner”? This statement has been misunderstood owing to the limitations of our minds. Malkuth is NUIT, and Kether is HADIT, and when united RA-HOOR-KHUIT, their Son is in Tiphereth. Also Nuit has said “My number is Eleven, as are all their numbers who are of us.” Kether is 1, Malkuth is 10, together Eleven, which is the Lost Sphere of DAATH, the Child of Chokmah and Binah. This is the Mystery of the Path of Aquarius, The Star, the Eleventh Sign of the Zodiac, brought to Earth at the Eleventh Hour, before Time had swallowed the Last of His Children, which shall be as The First in the Kingdom of the Here and Now.