For I have found Thee alike in the Me and the Thee; there is no difference, O my beautiful, my desirable One! In the One and the Many have I found Thee; yea, I have found Thee.
Liber LXV/III – 65
First of all, everything is all. And the A∴A∴ is everything; there is nothing more. This is really all that can be said about our Order, but the problem is that we need more than that so desperately to be able to understand that all. This loom of eternity, on which the Aspirant’s light is woven, is, in fact, all that we call grades. But every light, be it from Prometheus’s fire – stolen from the gods or from the stars, has its essence, which makes all lights radiate with the same glitter and in the same nature. Every light is from all the light; every ray of light comes from the same source of reality. Every light leads to the same consequence and the same shadow, just as every light embodies the need for expansion. But, the light we strive for has no shade. It is, or it is not. It is either bright or nothing else, and when it is not there, then it is the same light that does not exist. When there is no light, then there is nothing else. In the darkness, there are no shadows as there are no things. Darkness is equally dark when empty or when it is full of things. There is no impression of distance or separation in the dark because, in the dark, there is no distance. But how different is the appearance of light from being in the dark? How amazing it is to explain to someone what kind of phenomenon is caused by light, except that it is bright. As when he starts seeing, a man illuminated by the LVX changes his being in such a way that he cannot convey it in any possible way. No description can express a phenomenon such as light or love convincingly enough. And it seems that the two primary aggregate states of a living being are precisely these two things, equally in their romantic form as in the highest transcendence. And just as in love, it is not love that is important but the one who is loved, just as life is not as important as living that life, so it is not the spark that matters in light, but what is illuminated by the very spark. All these phenomena are diminutives of one sublime phenomenon. Our Order really exists only for the sake of a single purpose, which is to bring forward the noun hidden by these diminutives. And that is always and in every way what we call the Holy Guardian Angel.
That light is like a piece of a white canvas where a Titian or Monet unveils. And that same white groundwork is there in the cases of Cezanne and Miro too. But, we all too often say that it is just a piece of blank or empty canvas, not white, which passively awaits a genius’ movement of a paintbrush. All the trouble is that we assume that it is empty, and in that illusion of emptiness, we overshadow that divine white color. Once finished, such a masterpiece has much less color than an utterly white canvas in the beginning. In fact, there is more white color in a blank canvas than all other colors together in the future painting. In the same way, LVX is the groundwork canvas for the manifestation of the Angel and his true colors. Not because they are colored but because they are true. Without the attainment of the Angel, we are certainly not in darkness; but in a very special shadow – we are the ones who block another celestial body with our eclipse and persistently stare at the shadow we create by ourselves. All we have to do is turn against that shadow and see what the goal of our search is. How would we define LVX? What is it? And why should we go with the presumption of “what.” Let us try with “where” is LVX, or better “who” is LVX. What LVX is to our soul is like thunder to lightning – quite the same occurrence, but we perceive it as two completely different phenomena. Ears say, “I hear it” – as thunder. Eyes say, “I see it” – as lighting. Even in terms of time, thunder is always after the lighting, so eyes and ears agree that those are entirely different experiences and not nearly the same thing in any aspect. But in fact, it is just one the same occurrence of charging one specific force and nothing more.
The true essence of light, as the natural state of man, is the Angel. The smallest unit of the meaningful Universe, the lowest common denominator for every living being in the Universe is the Angel. And as an organism can exist without certain parts, organs, senses, or even whole systems, by the very existence in the apparent sense of the word, it does have what has been our goal all this time – itself. And the very notion of the Angel is just an evening tailcoat in which this phenomenon presents itself to its snobbish friends on Thursday nights. He is the basic unit of space-time; he is an advanced version and a fundamental notch of what we awkwardly call the Universe, creating that same boundlessness by measuring it. This particular phenomenon, the self-deception that has no equal, is a loop in a program that is not a program, which, again, is not a loop, but which makes all this worthy searching for only to not be even found in the end. Yet, cunningly bringing us to that very end.
At this point, the Neophyte will begin to think of grades in a lively and unique way, and he will develop his models of thought in accordance with the Oath he has taken. Furthermore, he will start getting the impression that his life is not just his property, after which he will undertake many meditations on life, death, life after or before life, on reincarnation. But in all these endeavors, a common thread must be discussed. That is the instinct for continuity of consciousness, which will make all these reflections a method of a single sublime contemplation, which will last until the realization of the Adeptus Exemptus. Lately, the theory of parallel dimensions has become more fascinating than the dimensions themselves, about which we know almost nothing. And when the Neophyte asks himself, if he exists only in this body in this reality and in only one way, if he exists in this form in an infinite number of different ways, or if he exists in infinitely different forms and infinitely different ways; after a lot of thinking and perseverance, he will quite brilliantly discover that the most probable possibility is, in fact, none of them. Of all these variations, the most logical one is that there is no variation, that it is quite probable that either he or the Universe simply does not exist at all. This is such a penetrating revelation that he discovers that of all the worlds, all possible forms of existence, and all possible truths, the most probable one is that none of them exists. Because if we can conclude anything about perception, as much as about truths, it is that senses and indirect apparatuses condition everything and that the only true existence that is certain is within the human mind. And exactly there, we can freely assume that the idea of existence is, in fact, only an idea within the mind that has no foundations outside that mind, in the same way as the idea of the non-existence is the creation of that same mind, with the very nature of the Universe having nothing to do with any of these possibilities. The existence or non-existence of the Universe are but shallow concepts which are representations of the mind, but not of the Universe.
The Tree of Life, no matter how symbolically understood or practically experienced, various experiences in the astral body, elemental and grade accomplishments, and invocations, as real as they seem to us; still, they pose a more purposeful question of their reality: If all possibilities are real, does that mean that there is a real chance that they do not really exist at all? The Aspirant is encouraged to take steps in this great meditation and numb his mind with his skepticism to such an extent that he will be able to catch the scent of Samadhi for a brief moment. Finally, freely concluding that every experience is in itself an illusion of perception, but not the perception of an illusion. What we experience is only a perception of a functional illusion. As a statement, it is as true as claiming that water is moist since it is appropriated in mind by attributes that are adopted and acquired without any understanding to the extent when any discussion about it would be completely meaningless. Because even though we all know that water is moist, the human brain is completely incapable of transmitting that knowledge unless there is a relationship to compare with. A red apple and a red tomato, in fact, can never be the same color as an apple and a tomato are different. Finally, that particular apple and that particular tomato are just names for the experience of transmitting perceptions of what we have decided to call by that name. They will never be similar things – even remotely. How then do we expect the Knowledge and Conversation when no knowledge can serve us for that conversation that we so persistently want to attain? Finally, why is the realization of the Knowledge and Conversation so difficult? Because everything that is so ultimately difficult means that it is not set on the right foot, we truly live in the belief that the more difficult the attainment is, the more critical it is in our development, rather than the opposite. The deeper the experience and the further from the normal behavior of our consciousness is, the easier and simpler it must be. Someone who tries to achieve lucid dreaming for years with no success finally realizes that he had spent all those years having a completely wrong approach, which really has nothing to do with the primary truth that lucid dreaming is one of the easiest skills in all our art. In the case of the Great Work, there is a conflict with a notion of experience that is different from anything we have ever experienced. Although we know it is just an expression for such a unique experience, we spend enormous energy dealing with the term while refusing to deal with the experience itself. The attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel is a fascinating trick more than anything, the greatest self-deception in the Universe, which is not possible as long as we experience it as a process. This experience refuses to be a meaningful question and an answer to anything, because in itself and within itself – it has no meaning at all.
How many times have you asked yourself, “who are you”? How many times have you asked yourself something out loud? How many of us talk to ourselves at all, and how many of us find value in this action, instead of feeling uncomfortable and even embarrassing when we notice that we are talking to ourselves while driving a car or walking relaxed? Stop reading this text and spend a few minutes talking to yourself aloud. It is important to talk to “him,”. Tell yourself something, whatever. More than anything, have a dialogue with yourself, not a monologue. Try to do this in public. Be active in that conversation. Do not just talk, but have a conversation; the difference is immense. You will see that such a conversation reflects a complete breakdown in which our mind functions, and as we are talking to ourselves aloud, a mixture of nonsense, shame, and specific shock arises within us, making it impossible to continue that conversation without having a break or stop. If we cannot have a simple, loud conversation with ourselves in public, should we be surprised that the Knowledge and Conversation with our own Angel can be a different sort of failure? The experience of the Knowledge and Conversation is neither rare nor difficult as much as our inability to understand that we Know and Converse all the time. It is a trick, with our brain jumping out of its own mechanism. The essence of that mechanism, which places your mind out of the box to be able to understand a magician’s trick performed in a circus, is always and only in perception. This is not any kind of intelligence, but a point of view. No matter how magnificent and incomprehensible, a trick seems completely ridiculous when viewed from behind a magician’s back. It is the same with Abramelin operation – it is difficult and incomprehensible only if viewed from our angle. However, if viewed from the perspective of the Angel, then the trick is completely comprehensible. Therefore, the only way to accomplish this is to look at Abramelin from the Angel’s angle, not a practitioner.
The main problem is how to change the view angle of the one who keeps his eyes closed? Attaining the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel – this is such a perplexing and intentionally twisted term that you forget that you Knew and Conversed all the time while reading that same term, word for word. In every pause between these words, in that hellish emptiness of letters that contribute to being able to read with clarity at all, that pause in thoughts, speech, gait, in every pause of everything that exists, there lies the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel always hiding in the same way. This is extremely important; the moment we caught that pause here and now, we would capture the moment of the Angel standing right in front of us. Suppose we were able to find that silence in every pause of anything we do carefully enough. In that case, it is in that break, in this present moment that never passes because it never started in the first place, then, we would Know and Converse with the Holy Guardian Angel just like we have done it countless times. But not here and not now, which is why we think we do not Know and we do not Converse. Because we expect it to be somewhere there and then. But, somewhere there and then have already been, millions of times before in the same way, in just the same way as now. The Angel strives for you all the time. The only problem is that you also strive for him, instead of waiting for him in that very same present.
It is very inconvenient to claim anything about the Angel. On the contrary, perhaps the whole work would be more appropriately carried out if we could define what he is not. For the Angel is not what we can understand him to be or what we think him to be; therefore, the purpose of these words is reflected in the counter-strategy, where we will not point to its appearance in the least. We are playing divine pantomime here, all the while referring to a particular experience without direct interference of the apparatus of thought. The effectiveness of this will be shown by the enthusiasm set in motion at the end of all these words, which has already started moving in its brilliant way, as these words get imprinted in your mind, more and more. This counter-logic is an entirely fantastic approach by which, like children, we try to jump over our own shadow; although doomed to failure because such a thing is simply impossible, leading our thinking apparatus to overcome its own mechanisms and see in that blink of ownness what we really need – our own Self. We have to twist our logic. We have to turn our mind upside down. We have to walk this earth as antipodes searching for something we may never find.
In the language of the Angel, 2 + 2 is not 4, but 22, isn’t that so obvious? 3 + 3 is 8 because it is so gracefully made up of two oppositely connected three’s, while the figure eight itself is 0 in front of a mirror. All these values are much more logical than 4 or 6 are. Nevertheless, we are uneasy whenever we find a different result from the one which our logic finds itself, regardless of its justification. And the further the logic is from our result of 4 or 6, the greater the feeling of discomfort. In fact, if we look more closely within that feeling, we will see that it is not discomfort but anger. We are furious because even though we understand the logic of a different result, we still refuse to solve it differently. Although we understand the solution, we do not realize it. We can conclude that the greatest discomfort is in an experience such as enlightenment. However, indeed, this statement cannot be true just because it is the product of the same locked logic and language in which the sum of 2 and 2 is exclusively 4, instead of 22.
Enlightenment is a word that simply has no meaning in our program. It is by no means meant to have the wrong meaning. Because if that were the case, someone would have found a constant that leads to it by now. And that has not happened in centuries. More precisely, it has never happened. This is such a small statistical phenomenon that if we approach it with completely sober heads, we can give the only valid conclusion, which is simply that enlightenment does not exist. Let us ask ourselves, is it possible that the only thing that all people on the planet have been striving for generations, and to whom all secret societies aspire, may not actually exist at all? Which does not mean it cannot happen. After all, does that devalue this whole chase at all? On the contrary, if placed and viewed from this angle, our entire magick begins to radiate an entirely new light. Equally, both magick and mysticism are only prostheses of the spirit, with whom that spirit having atrophied, unable to make any progress, in no way whatsoever. The ultimate outcome is certainly a thing of the exalted mind, but finally, it must be a unique symbiosis of physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology, made up in an unimaginable and fantastic way, in which this mind could fully express itself in all its brilliance. All we think about it is a completely personal and grieving phantasmagoria, so overwhelmed by the only truth about enlightenment – that it simply does not exist.
But the Angel and the attainment of the Angel seem to be completely different things even though they both point to the same deceiving notion and byway – the concept of meaning. If we look at our program, we can notice one unit of chaos and nonsense, one trait of absurdity that progresses from the very beginning to the end of our meaningful Universe. All existence – as we know it – contains a mechanism of utter absurdity that grows and progresses, together with the growth of the Universe. At first, it is completely inconspicuous and tiny, but already now, as we get acquainted with the art of sigil, for example, we clearly see that there are forces that can govern in an entirely realistic way precisely because they are not guided by any rules or patterns. This certain job is done perfectly when we stop doing it at all. We piece together the mosaics of our meaningful mind, finding one apparent unit of nonsense by which each grade is constructed, and as we progress toward the light of Tiphareth, at one point, we discover that we simply cannot go any further. That imperceptible unit of nonsense begins to hurt and distract; even in completely ordinary and everyday things, we increasingly notice the presence of that unit equally, which is starting to develop by its own division. This infection starts affecting our being more and more, which, finding a connection between things in our program, is now beginning to perceive the absurdity in all these models equally. The word “attainment” is utterly confusing for something as simple as the attainment of Adepthood, with a technically complicated and intricate name resembling the code of the most precious padlock: “The Attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel,” while in the same way, something that is most complex for a manifested thinking being – to achieve the annihilation of the Ego, has the shortest and the simplest description: “to cross the Abyss.” Therefore, this counter-logic represents our strategy towards miracle; it breaks the defense of a system that prevents us from seeing the invisible. This defense system is fortified so well in us that it attacks everything that leads to unity and Self, leading our being to view that Self as an irrational number, as a completely unknown and distant value in our logical reasoning – our only language and currency.
It is exactly this counter-strategy, this logical error, that is all we need to grasp the idea of the Angel, at least for a moment. We must think from the angle of that error in order to catch for a moment a character who has no apparent dimension, and who does not exist in the usual sense of the word, the way our being uses it. Such a logical error, the counter-strategy of mapping this irrational value, this irrational number, was so brilliantly presented during World War II, where countries had to solve many mathematical and strategic tasks to succeed in winning and surviving war. One of those complex assignments was to find ways of improving military aircraft so they would be more resistant to enemy fire. Statisticians were asked to evaluate and determine which parts of the aircraft needed to be up-armored to minimize the damage from enemy fire and lower the number of airplane crashes. Therefore, the Navy received a diagram that showed all of the places the planes were usually damaged the most.
Quickly after receiving this statistics formula, the engineers had to tackle a new task – finding ways to protect these most commonly damaged areas by adding additional strengthening of the armor.
Abraham Wald was the man who completely disagreed with this plan. According to him, the statisticians were looking at the planes that came back, meaning that the damage was not critical. Wald pointed out that they should do the exact opposite of what the Navy was planning to do. According to him, they should understand that the undamaged areas on the diagram were the reason that the aircraft was able to make it back. What Abraham Wald found was a logical error known as “Survival Bias.” An author Rishabh Nahar perfectly explains the “Survival Bias” theory in his article: “It is a tendency to focus on the survivors rather than whatever you would call a non-survivor depending on the situation. After any event that leaves behind survivors, non-survivors are often destroyed or removed. If the failure becomes invisible, then naturally, we will focus on the success.” If we look back at what Abraham Wald was offering the Navy, it was to consider that aircraft with crucial damage did not make it back home and that they were only looking at the survivors. A similar thing happened in WWI when they decided to distribute helmets to troops. The numbers of the injured rose, but only because more people survived. There were more injuries but fewer deaths. More injuries, but more survived.
Our entire training toward the Angel is based on the wrong strategy, where we strengthen the armor in entirely wrong places, making our methods fail before they have even been used. But what we need above all is to observe the value of the Angel through this very mechanism. Either we should look for the Angel in a direction where we do not perceive him, or we should not perceive him at all indeed. Because what we perceive is everything but the Angel. It is what our defense mechanism sets up as a decoy, for us to always remain in pursuit of it – still, never being able to find it. The phenomenon of the Angel is not even intended to be perceived; the idea of him is so abstract that it acquires its form the moment we have decided to reach him. It is a dream shaping up the moment we go to bed, not after we have fallen asleep. When we begin to dream, the dream has long since been constructed. We enter into an already finished and prepared false reality; hence, the possibility of waking up and realizing we have fallen asleep is reduced almost to absolute zero. It is an entirely similar thing with the Angel; the moment we start looking for him the way we think we should look for him, that is, looking for what we think we can find and finding what we want to find, at that moment, we are not creating the Angel – but deception. It is a deception we keep creating so persistently, with almost an artistic instinct, deceiving ourselves that we are even within reach, that the Angel is almost there, that we are so close that we can almost feel his presence. It can be said that this terrible mechanism implied that we would think so and that it was precisely this sense of Angel’s presence, which was planted as a fraud within this whole tragic quest. And the whole equation would be solvable to some extent if the whole mechanism of deception did not lack one final element to be called deceitful; it is precisely this element that we cannot comprehend for one simple reason. Because that last – non-existent and illusory element is something completely astonishing – that element is us. We will tackle the Angel here, but only as a poetic allegory, in a completely different way because we want to accept that in this “different,” there is actually a concealed phenomenon that we call the Angel awkwardly. We will try an approach from all sides and from all roles, but always avoiding the one we are used to – frontally, logically, and straight ahead.
Everything we call our being is just an algorithm of the Angel. In fact, both concepts are reflections of the same phenomenon – like a mirror placed before another mirror. It is a firm and quite solid illusion of how solid and real the Universe is. But we must try to understand that the notion of illusion is not a nihilistic endeavor. It is not that such an illusion indicates the non-existence of what we expect to find. Rather, it shows a disturbed system of proportion our map is based on. On that map, the values are not decadal, nor is there an appropriate coordination system as we understand it. We simply do not own the value we are looking for on that map of the mind. It is not translated so that we can determine which direction to look for it. Statistically, we are more likely to find that value if we search at random than following any existing trajectory. All the movements of the Aspirant in the Golden Dawn are an attempt to follow such an imaginary value. It is an utterly arbitrary expression of something for which there are really no indications we need to follow. All the coordinates we have are extremely scarce, except for two senseless absurdities our research spirit orbits around – the Angel and the Abyss. To make the situation even more hopeless, we know that all the other values we have already attained are only servants of those two ultimate experiences, representing the most critical points of our sacred search.
The Angel is a term that has no value because it has no other relationship with any other values that exist. Let us start with a simple example: if we are enjoying a summer day at 30 degrees Celsius and find out that it will be twice as cold tomorrow, how many degrees will we expect tomorrow? We will be expecting 15 degrees tomorrow. If, by any chance, today it is 8 degrees and tomorrow is going to be twice as cold, then it will be 4 degrees tomorrow. If today it is 10 degrees below zero, and tomorrow will be twice as cold, then tomorrow will be 20 degrees below zero. But, if today the scale of the thermometer shows zero, and tomorrow will be twice as cold, how many degrees will it be tomorrow? This issue is completely identical to the issue of the Angel; namely, in order to answer this problem, we have to shift the value to which we have artificially assigned the value of zero, although the temperature reflected by zero certainly has a tangible and measurable value, just like any other temperature value. In order to solve it successfully, we must now move that temperature from the temporary slavery of the zero value which we assigned to it – that is, to transfer it to the Kelvin scale, and then divide that value we obtained by two, which is a more specific value than zero. The Angel in our system is quite awkwardly nailed down to the value of zero, and from that position, we can do nothing concrete with him, as long as he is frozen in that place. But suppose we relocate the Angel now from this inappropriate position and look at him differently. In that case, we will place his value exactly where it should be – in a place where it can be combined and diminished and thus inserted into the system of real values; in other words, he will become a point in our coordinate system. He will get his position and unit – at least for a moment, but long enough to spot him.
But such an observation, that mapping of a superior experience as the Angel, is the most horrible abomination of the human mind, and the Aspirant must be equally careful not to get into its ultimate trap, which, by gaining such a sublime experience, undermines the illusion of that experience at the same time. The possibility of understanding this correctly is often just a coincidence, yet we must cunningly observe this mind and that Angel alike. We must keep in our being both light and the illusion of light completely equally in order to be able to separate the thin line of light and shadow. It is in that divine landscape where the source of all our quests is. To speak of the mind in the place of the Angel is quite witty; the decree of the Angel is not in a parable or an “aha-effect,” nor is it a sufficiently accurate metaphor. We cannot talk about anything else that would indicate the Angel in any way. But pointing the mind to the mistakes it has made trying to understand the concept of the Angel can help our misery to see an end coming as much as possible. Not an end to misery, but the end of mind. It is in this area that the beginning of all possible endeavors to conceive the Angel lies. It is a task like getting the square root from minus 1 or finding values such as Pi. It is nonsense that has a completely concrete foundation in itself, but without any final solution from the start.
We will deliberately distance ourselves from the term “Holy Guardian Angel” for one main reason – precisely because it is a term. It is impossible to understand the Angel in the usual sense of the word. All the cunningness of his appearance is in the experience of the moment, the experience of the present, which does not possess the possibility of perception per se. The Angel is what he is, whatever he is. This is the true nature of the Buddha as Tathagata, and the brilliance of this observation even leads us to believe that he a potential emptiness in his nature, as an active expanse charged with the Will. The space occupied by an apple is like an apple, but if we move the apple out of it now, that space will not be empty. It is actually exactly the same as when the apple was there at first, but with an active charge of apple perception that is forever “here” and “now”. Finally, the space in which there is no apple is occupied by the same shape of an apple which does not exist. In all its exceptionality, a clay teapot is not real; what is real is only clay. How could a teapot ever exist without clay? A teapot is just clay formed by the Will in the shape of a teapot. Ice does not exist; there is only water. Ice is only a consequence of the Will passing through water, transforming it into ice. It is exactly the same thing with the Angel. There is no Angel, but only our attention shaping a supreme experience and which, by this design, acquires the nature of the Angel equally. There is no Angel because we are the Angel at that same moment, and as the nature of the Angel is completely individual and unique, the moment we have taken on what we already are, that moment, there can be no other that we have set out to take on. The phenomenon of this paradoxical experience is above all the phenomenon of time clashing with the phenomenon of consciousness; all the sparks that result from the collision of these two magnificent things are the waste creating the stars and the entire created Universe, in the specific sense of the word. When we turn on the light, the darkness goes away. But where does it go? It does not go away, it is there all the time, but our perception is directed towards another reality of that same darkness. The absence of darkness in the light seems to let both light and darkness exist parallelly. It can be said that parallelly is a completely inappropriate expression. Of course, they do not exist parallelly. We are the only ones who determine the parallelism of events with our thoughts when we turn on and off the light, at the same time turning off and turning on the darkness. Therefore, both darkness and light are only states that have nothing to do with what is darkened and lightened. It is in this area in between where the Angel is, while we are mistakenly looking for him either in light or in darkness, not realizing that he is exactly there – in between.
There is no attainment of the Angel, as there is no attainment of Yoga; these are completely contradictory notions. The term Angel simply does not mean that you can reach the Angel. This is similar to when we want to come to a favorite vacation destination with its own cute small airport, through our place of residence, which also has an airport. However, the whole problem is that there is no direct flight from our airport to our paradise island, and the only way is to board a connecting flight. That is, to travel temporarily to a third airport that is neither ours nor is located on our paradise island. On the contrary, this third airport may be located further away from that paradise island than our residence, but we have to get to it simply because there is a flight from it to our paradise destination. Without that third airport, that paradise island doesn’t seem to exist for us. This mediator makes it very difficult for us to understand the Angel because we really cannot understand that we need to reach the Angel by not going to the Angel at all. It is a catch that has no equal in all of our art, and it is responsible for almost all phenomena concerning human consciousness, which means that we can admit quite openly this glitch to be an integral phenomenon of all life in all worlds.
Looking at yourself in the mirror does not mean that you should say hello to that person; on the contrary – whatever we do, that character will do precisely the same. This is due to an utterly astonishing fact – this character is not a character, but a reflection of a completely unexpected thing – ourselves. And as much as we know that it is our reflection, it will always be so strange to us because we cannot even know what we look like without it. After all, how can we know that reflection in the mirror is ours when we do not even know what we really look like? How do we know who we are in relation to what we can compare our reflection in the mirror? We have a broader knowledge of the reflection in the mirror than of ourselves, although it is exactly the same thing, with equally identical reflections. The same Self has been composed of two Selves – the one who observes itself in the mirror and the other which is observed. The Angel is neither of them; he is only the surface of a mirror where these two reflections meet, in which there is only one Self, as only one mind is always reflected within the whole Universe.
Genius, Daimon, Angel – these are all terms that occupy us, but are they the same thing? Here is the essence of Ruach, as a linear representation of feelings, of all the feelings we have ever experienced; although each feeling is unique, we narrow them down and classify. One rose scent is always a scent of a rose no matter how many of those different, infinitely different scents there which belong to infinitely different roses, but for our Ruach, it is always one scent of a rose. Quoting a term implies that it has already been understood. It aligns our consciousness with an experience we have already been through based on which we can make an experiential and apparent connection. But the experience of the Angel is anything but a concept and everything but an experience. All that we have cited so far are only associations and moral teachings that lead us to only one thing – neither to comprehend the Angel by this nor to gain knowledge of the phenomenon – no, not in the least. It helps us remember what we already know and what we have long understood, classified, and finally forgotten. It is precisely the memory that deviates from all the usual phenomena of cognition and knowledge which imply that something new and unknown is being experienced. But now, if we insert the idea of memory into our concept, which tells us that there is a feeling we have already experienced and forgotten the whole moment, and if we have subordinated the whole phenomenon of the Angel to a completely different experience of time, then recollection is the path we need to go but with a wholly reversed knowledge of time. Because how could we even remember something for which there has been no time to be forgotten simply because that moment lasts all the time? This is the whole point and meaning of grades, as well as the phenomenon of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, which is not only an object of phantasmal occult skills but exclusively a matter of natural sciences and completely advanced psychology.
No matter how long it takes, every experience, be it drinking water or the Knowledge and Conversation, lasts the same immeasurable moment. In fact, it is all about exactly the same moment. The fact that we value and call it differently is just a matter of our perception, but it is always one and the same moment. The moment of attaining the Knowledge and Conversation is not a long process. It lasts exactly the same as the moment of moving the pedal of a bicycle or anything else. But its impact on what comes “after” it and our entire lives is what adorns such an experience. We think that something lasts, but in fact, what lasts is only our opinion of something that has no duration at all; each experience is infinitely short in itself. An orgasm lasts only a moment. We still awkwardly feel the experience of orgasm, but that experience is either yet to come, and we think it has started to happen, or it has already passed, and we still mistakenly think it is still going on. We can notice how each event and each act is actually falsely composed of sequences. The winner of the marathon did not actually run the marathon. He is on the podium, and that moment lasts very short, without being tied to any other moment. The fact that we think that our victory lasts takes us equally away from the moment in which we are always in the same way with our Selfhood. The marathon winner is at the same quality of the moment as the runner-up, but they both stick to their first or second place, equally being outside the moment of a real victory of the spirit. We may think we have won, but every event in which we act throws us out of the moment in which the Self is. Paradoxically, the winner is shouting while enjoying his moment of victory, but that is a complete illusion. He cannot enjoy the moment of victory. The moment of victory does not exist because victory is what threw him out of being in that moment. He can only enjoy the moment itself, but his victory completely deprives him of an opportunity to get to know such a moment which is passing away again and again in the same way, the same moment, moment after moment, with that winner becoming a loser the next moment, or something completely different – and by taking on roles and actions, he will always be out of that same moment forever. The Angel constantly offers himself to the human soul in the same lively and active way, which rejects him with longing, constantly and incessantly, in this clumsy game, just but seduction. It is a perfectly appropriate perception of a cup that can be full or empty, but in fact, it is always a cup – that, and nothing else.
It is the same with the moment. The fact that we do not find the Angel in it, and we do not have the Knowledge and Conversation does not deprive the moment of that presence. What is deprived is our attention: we look, but we do not see. We listen, but we do not hear. We have the knowledge, but we do not understand. But overall, it is always and forever – the Knowledge and Conversation. That moment is exactly the same as the moment of reading these letters, and all our inability to experience the Knowledge and Conversation from that moment seems to be in a very simple issue. It has just happened in the previous sentence of this text. And now you go back looking persistently for that moment in the previous sentence, and while you are doing that, another Knowledge and Conversation has just happened. Just a moment ago.
Time is the ultimate phenomenon that the Neophyte begins to realize, and that knowledge faithfully accompanies him until the attainment of Magister Templi. He gained subtle knowledge that time traveling is actually all the time. Our inability to grasp time has created that completely wrong and futile notion of traveling. He gets a slight indication that both ultimate experiences – both that of the time and that of the Angel – are complete failures of the Self to understand the mechanism by which the Universe manifests itself before his eyes. But he should try something extremely simple – let him try to halt time in his mind – a very simple action but so impossible. Does stopping time exclude the existence of time? Can stopping time be experienced at all? And finally, can we experience time at all, isn’t what we call the phenomenon of time actually something completely different from what time really is? How much time can pass during such a stop? A moment or an eternity? Is there a difference? How much time can pass in the stopped time? If we stop time, that stop cannot even last a moment. Once it has stopped, time will never happen – precisely because it has passed.
Samasati is the only true method within our Order. All other practices are just warming-up for such a sublime act. Every experience is a recollection, every moment is always a retrospection by itself. The Neophyte gets the knowledge that the time spent practicing is anything but a waste of time. In reality, the complete opposite is happening; by practicing, we actually get more time than we spend with that practice. It is only at the end that we realize this new experience is actually a recollection of something we “once” have already experienced. This is a paradox which poisons the brain during each of the grades even more deeply as he approaches the Great Work. But that approach is not a time distance at all because he will never get close enough to attain it. It will rather be realized at once and in one single moment when the right time comes, and it is Abramelin operation that acts and strike the Aspirant so that he, in fact, does not achieve it during well-known 6, or more months of dedicated work. He achieves it “now” – when that “now” decides to merge through him while he decides to manifest through that “now” at precisely the same time. That moment of success in this magnificent fireworks is, as we have noticed, precisely the same moment as any other moment, which we have already experienced countless times in exactly the same way. Just as a bureaucrat who is 180 centimeters tall and a child with a height of 80 centimeters has exactly the same centimeters that are always the same value in each part and always the same centimeter – just repeated a different extent. Every man is actually of the same height. He has exactly the same quality of height in the dimension. The fact that the number of centimeters is different does not change the fact of our existence in the dimension of height at all. We are all present in that dimension in the same way, but somehow we invoke the difference in units, hence abandoning that divine presence, seeing the divergence instead of unity. The fact that we are not aware of the Knowledge and Conversation does not change the fact that we, as well as every conscious organism in this Universe, always and in each moment realizing the Knowledge and Conversation with the Holy Guardian Angel. It is not a problem that we do not Know and do not Converse, but because we are completely unaware of the moment in which we do it so openly and easily. Indeed, there is no single event in the Universe that is not already the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. The fact we are not aware of it does not concern us, but understanding that what we think the Knowledge and Conversation is and what the Knowledge and Conversation truly is, is actually not nearly the similar thing.
In all our efforts to capture the Will, we so rudely reject the communion of the ordinary, mundane will with what we call the True or Pure Will. As if we need to believe that something like this is not identical. We need to think that if we act out of Pure Will and feel discomfort and misery, then it is quite possible that we have not even realized the Will, but only a limiting aspect or an illusion or even deception rather than the knowledge of the Pure Will. But let us do one quite simple experiment. What I want is for you to let all the air out of your lungs, but not aggressively – simply exhale the air subtly and stop there, without breathing. Now, I want you never to breathe air again, even at the cost of your death. It is a very simple instruction, arm yourself with a steel-strong Will completely blocking the lungs from breathing air. Say goodbye to your loved ones and keep the thought of breathing blocked all the time inside your mind. Discomfort will come soon, your being will crave for breathing, but you must not allow that same being to breathe. Moments of discomfort are passing, then irritations, as you slowly come to complete suffering. However, your Will is so strong and determined that not a single breath of air descends into the pits of your lungs. Hold on just a little longer, and you can discover one fantastic thing. At one moment, like the one we have talked about earlier, your Will not to inhale air will be completely transformed into the Will to inhale air, and you will inhale it fully consciously, changing your intention. But you will not be changed in the least. It will be the same Will that, withdrawn by reflex, completely bypassed its course and did the thing it vowed not to. Suppose you now pay full attention to that moment in which a complete surrender in that battle took place when you breathed in the air. In that case, you will notice that you did that moment Willingly and that it was the maneuver of your true nature, in the same way that the same Will launched the whole experiment for one reason. Because it knows that you will come to the “moment” when it will show its true manifestation, the very moment that is the same moment with every moment that exists, in which the True Will is always as true as any other will, or any other moment. Just seconds before that breath, you were convinced you were not going to inhale, but that same “you” is inhaling now – not the air, but the True Will which has been inhaling and exhaling all the time of your life, only now your attention is focused on it without precedent because your thinking apparatus cannot disturb you with anything else but attempts to survive. And at that moment, it lowers all the barriers to see that dwarf Will, naked and pure. Try to feel that moment of breath well; you will feel your Pure Will for a moment, as it “is”; in that moment of inhaling, the Knowledge and Conversation happened.
There is such a simple and effective way to get a feeling of what we are talking about here. Until recently, one tribe believed that if a man turned to his left side over his shoulder fast enough, he could see his own death. In fact, the mechanism of this idea is astonishingly brilliant; what is required now is to keep the focus on one thing in front of us, a thing completely irrelevant, at a completely irrelevant distance. It is only important that we keep our attention fixed on a chosen object for a while, without moving our gaze from it – and certainly not for more than 10 seconds. After that, it is necessary to quickly and aggressively move the head to the side, stopping to look at a completely different thing. It seems that our being needs a few moments to stabilize the new sight, as if establishing a new position and a new reality, and as it is getting accustomed to this change, we will have enough time to feel the Pure Will in that emptiness. It is a very specific feeling, like a mental vacuum that lasts a moment or two before it gets filled by the fog of consciousness, which allows a completely naked and true nature to be displayed in such a void. It is a moment that is irritated by the Pure Will because there is no other stimulus that would interfere with it, and yet, it is an insufficiently intense irritation to provoke a more serious reaction. It is something like when you expect to sneeze, you have to look into the light, open your mouth, and make a grimace, but there is no sneezing. As the attention stabilizes, that moment of moving the head quickly and aggressively to the side and abruptly fixing on one point, which seems as if it not existing in time, allows the Aspirant to perceive himself before becoming “he.” Like suddenly getting up in the morning and jumping out of bed before we even got dressed and seeing ourselves as we are at that moment – naked and aware. There is a very specific feeling of active emptiness in that magical moment when we move our head and gaze fast, inhabited by a very special presence – the presence of the Pure Will.
Let us listen to our heartbeat. Are we causing that beating? Could we stop that blow, or slow it down at least a little? Are we breathing? Can we stop breathing forever? How is it possible that the most important operations in our lives can be controlled only to a certain extent? In the end, do we execute them at all? Listen carefully to your heart with a stethoscope; you are listening to that heart, but you are making it beat at the same time. This is such an outstanding example of the Knowledge and Conversation. Listen to the heartbeat you cause; in every beat you are listening to as if someone other than you were doing it, lies the phenomenon of the Great Work. When you are listening to your heart, that sound seems completely strange and distant to you, and you cannot influence it in the least, nor can the Will of yours slow it down or speed it up, or start it, or interrupt it. It lives entirely by its own pulsation. In this case, in one action, you are an active observer, such as listening to its beat, while in another action, you are a passive initiator, such as beating that same beat. Equally, you are beating your heart, and you are listening to that same beat. These are two separate actions carried out by exactly the same cause – you. But the truth is completely different: you are neither beating nor listening to those beats. Because if you are not the one who causes beats, then you are not the one who listens to them. You just live in the illusion that both actions are yours. You persist in that illusion because both actions are transient, and with each subsequent beat, it becomes the most glorious event in the Universe – memory. That same heartbeat that always comes, forever as long as you are alive, always goes the same way. It is a movement that is continuously happening and continually passing. Every heartbeat that has happened becomes a thing of the past to the one who beats, and that is you – who have absolutely no control over this process except that you live in the belief that it is all your doing. Even if you want to stop beating now, you will not be able to, precisely because it is not your heart at all. You do not have that heart that beats, just as you do not have that ear that listens to his beating; you only have a moment in which you exist observing that beat and thinking it is yours instead of turning to an entirely different occurrence. That is why you cannot have the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel because you cannot beat your heartbeat and listen to those same beats equally, just as you cannot Know and Converse at the same time. In fact, you do not need the “same time,” you do not need time at all. Because the Ego lives in time, while the Angel resides in the present moment. The whole problem we face is that the present is not the time. It is wrong to assume that the present is the same attribute as the past or the future; the true observation is that it is not a category of time at all, but the Angel. The event that is “now” has never really happened and never will. The hand that was broken in childhood does not exist; there is only the presence of that memory and the belief that this event has ever happened at all. The only difference between a hand that broke in childhood and a hand that did not break in childhood is that one of these events did not happen at all. Our memory will give the only judgment about it – remembering what happened instead of remembering what did not happen. But neither event actually happened. It happens all the time. But to someone else, not you. Because you were never in the past, you are only now.
The Angel is not in you, above you, or inside you. He is precisely in this transmission, in that state between, he arises a moment after the perception of each of these letters, coming out as formed and embodied knowledge. And no matter how much he looked different, he is actually the same. He is always the same because you are always the same – again, constantly, always the same in the everlastingly same way. The whole concept of reincarnation is meaningless, the way it is conceived by weaker minds, not because it does not exist, but because we are always experiencing the same. There are no grades, as there are no incarnations. There are no other lives. Are they not just an excuse for our weakness to understand this one? What really incarnates is the present; you have read all this endlessly many times, always reacting in the same way just as you are reacting now. This is the same thing you are doing all the time, and while floating in that doing, you project a false impression that this is the first time. Both yesterday and tomorrow are equally distorted experiences of the Angel as long as you refuse to experience your feelings now. The Knowledge and Conversation is not hiding in the present because it does not need to hide. Instead, the present is what is hidden inside the Knowledge and Conversation. The Aspirant does not have rights. He has claims. He does not need to attain; he just has to claim what he already has, what he has already attained. When? Now. In the full sense of the word.
Let us now consider one quite ordinary thing – let us look at a video of a running horse. When we look at that recording, we see a horse running, but if we unroll the whole film strip in front of us now, we can clearly see hundreds of pictures of completely different horses. And no horse in those pictures, or frames, is the same. Each is in a different movement and position. Indeed, we do not see just one horse, but many different ones. But does that mean that they are really different horses? And where is the main one which we recorded in the first place? Indeed, the main horse that caught our attention in the first place suddenly appears when we let the film strip go. When that happens, instead of hundreds of different pictures of horses, we now get a completely different experience – a vastly different experience of a moving horse. We do have the belief that it is one horse in a race, but the truth is that there are a lot of horses that do not move at all. On the contrary, they are frozen – each one in its own moment. It is our perception that makes a new experience out of all of them, and that makes a whole new dimension of movement out of all that standing – and a whole new horse – one horse. In all moments, there is always and only one Angel, who is always the same, who is always “he.” Not ours, yours or mine, but himself. Here and now. What frames are for the horse, it is “us” for the Angel. His nature is frozen until it flows through our Self, and at that moment, we get the movement of the most brilliant light which we perceive as the Angel.
Each pearl was created by irritation. The larger the grain of sand, the more it will irritate and press from the inside of the shell, and the more valuable the outcome will be. The beauty is based on constant irritation. The appearance of the Angel is irritating so that it makes the center of the heart completely different from that heart. It is all but endearing and lovely. Such irritation and aggression are an authentic pair of Angel wings, which causes the urge to what we call the Great Work. Like a blister that has a cause at its root, in the same way that root in man’s consciousness is beyond all that he can perceive, and which compels him to push it to the surface of his being.
There is one constant pressure in our field of vision that bothers us all the time. It is our nose; it is there all the time, but our mind has chosen to ignore it. It is really there all the time, and if we had objective reasons to look critically at this ridiculous situation, everyone who is somewhat decent would go crazy due to its presence. The annoying fly is nothing compared to this visual handicap, yet no one feels uncomfortable. Nobody wondered what the heck is this thing doing in the middle of his field of vision, forever ever in his life? Why? Because it is always there. What is going on now with our nature, that Pure Will, which not only shapes a part of our field of vision, but it also participates and is present in the whole cosmic process which we call “I.” Indeed, there is no part of us that is not completely, not partially but completely imbued with this distracting means. Therefore, our mind has used the same mechanism. It completely forgot about it so that it could function in a linear way. The biggest nose is the Angel, and that is why he is perceived so distantly – because he has always been here, in front of us, all the time – as much as the nose is. It can be said that the presence of the Angel is equivalent to the presence of all noses in all the worlds at the same time. In fact, it would be completely inconvenient to be able to speak openly about the concept of the Angel and not be aware that he is the main trigger of all the thoughts about him. But the impossibility of observing him is directly proportional to the amount of his presence. So follow that nose. It is the best route in Cosmos. Pick every single tip from any corner from the Universe, whatever it is called the A∴A∴, or O.T.O., or something else. Use them as tools, or even better, use them as toys.
But we certainly have to think about the fact that the perception of an event changes the event to such an extent that it becomes a completely new event after the perception. Therefore, the real question is, which of those is distorted: the perception or the event, and whether one is just an illusion of the other? The perception of the highest truth is a lie as much as that perception is real to us. The whole essence of the Self is that it does not exist in the conventional sense of the word and that every thought of it is a thought of everything but not of it. In the same way as the idea of enlightenment, the Angel is completely and only a matter of language; as an experience, he does not fall under any category, for the simple reason that he does not exist. Suppose we know that the ultimate denominator of all things in the Universe is the value of 56. How will that knowledge contribute to anything other than thinking of the number 56? After all, our numbers are just a relationship in our mind that is based primarily on a decimal system. And above all, what we know about that number has changed its meaning by our knowledge of that moment. Our perception of that number at that moment changes the value of that number, getting down to the same task again – out of a desire to understand the new number ahead, which we are constantly changing by our perception of its new meaning. That spiritual quicksilver, squirming through the mind and everything that exists that eternal constant everlastingly changing, is truly the real nature of the Angel.
The eyes see everything – apart from themselves – for one sublime and passionate reason. Because they do not exist. Although they see and observe, and thus create the Universe, they do not exist as the idea while they are watching, making this observed Universe non-existent as well. Furthermore, no one in this world sees what you see even the whole Universe is looking at precisely the same thing as you. When people observe one and the same thing, they will all see different things. Similarly, as we all know, it is one thing we are watching, and although we experience it completely differently, we can assume that there are no other observers in the same way. Only one. But if we look into this statement deeper, we can see that an observer is always a different Self, all of them having a distorted impression that they are actually one. Reading these letters, how different medium are you now from the one you were yesterday? How much is each letter seen by another Self? The last chapter of this book will be read by another Self, who is by no means you. And this sentence right now is being read by a third one, who gets a new and unique knowledge that is intended only for that Self and no other.
Let us look passively for a while at these unconnected layers of different selves that lean and wrap like an arch around what we call identity. We will notice that they lead to a specific area of the mind, which does not seem to belong to ordinary consciousness. In a similar way as our consciousness is of a completely different nature during drunkenness, although it is still part of our identity, it equally contains something of an alien element that does not resemble us at all – and in fact – seems much closer to our true nature than “we” really are. This way of meditating where we observe millions of different selves in millions of different moments doing millions of different things, as alien and separate parts of the mind watching them disinterestedly all the time, acts on that mind like a poison intoxicating the shackles of the Ego, making it leap like a chamois all the way up to a spring high in the mountains. That Pan’s goat, which jumps across the paths of ordinariness, high over the fences of morality and identity and all these accumulated selves, climbing to the colorless, impersonal spark of the Angel to which no meaningful mind-path leads. While jumping, it is more in the air than on the ground – it remains grounded only for a brief moment just to strike against the ground with its hooves strongly bouncing up in the skies, over and over again.
Man contains millions of molecules that he knows nothing about, and despite all that, he asks billions of stars the question, “Am I alone?” It is difficult to imagine why loneliness would be a bad thing and why we look for the size and purpose of the Universe in the number of conscious beings. Don’t all the paths of spirituality and inner work lead us to the possibility that, in fact, everything is one single consciousness within a single great mind, and our search goes in a completely different direction that does not ensure any attainment whatsoever. Why are we afraid that there really is no one here but us? Our trouble is not that we cannot experience infinity but that we cannot understand one concept, which is the shared content of all things in this Universe – the concept of “I.” Despite the fact that our foot has so many millions of atoms and molecules, we do not think to look for any intelligence or the Angel in that foot, or anything that would intrigue our mind. Then why are we looking for intelligences in some other millions? Other planets, other galaxies, other others. Are we able to look for intelligence in “us” who have been here all the time? How many of us are even there in one “I”? And how much is one “I” – one at all? Moreover, is it “I” at all? Wherever we point, at any single atom in our body – we will say, “it’s me,” or “it’s a part of me,” even though we do not feel any of that atom in the least. Yet it is a scientific truth that this atom is “us” even though it does not know it at all, even though that atom has no idea about the “I” that has it. Why do we think that sublime intelligences are something different when it is only one and the same intelligence all the time? The only “I”?
There is quite a reasonable fear in us, which is that all this is one empty fairy tale, and if we get a good insight into that feeling, we will see that it is not fear at all. It is a fascination that all forces in nature are of a completely different order compared to what they taught us and what we think in our wildest dreams – that the order of things is completely different from all occult theories – and that wrong glyphs represent all phenomena. All intelligences, angels, and demons are simply the nickname of our limitation to realize that they do not exist nor can they be as we have imagined them, as we have thought of them. All phenomena are actually a form of one dream, and all lives are fantasies of one and the same mind – the moment we accept it, when we realize that we are the same Will even without knowing about it, when we think about ourselves without addressing ourselves with a name, when we walk without telling our feet what to do, when we live without beating our hearts, and breathe without moving our lungs. When we do all this without knowing that we are actually doing it, when we listen to silence without hearing it, and when we think without thoughts – then we will be Will, neither Pure nor True. A free man does not strive for what he already has; only a prisoner yearns for freedom. There is no reason for the Will, nor is it related to all other wills. There is only one Will, and it is one chaotic constant that has the most precious characteristic of all phenomena in the Universe. It is alive. It is living. Of all our quests, we have narrowed our entire effort to only two crucial attainments. In fact, all systems have the same division equally present, whether it is black and white, plus and minus, zero and one, Yin and Yang, the Angel and the Abyss. But we have always gone the way of applying the laws of the Universe simply and plastically so that every soul can comprehend them. Whether you follow the North Star or the inner voice, you will really always arrive at the same place.
You cannot choose Will. You can do Will. Each living action is an aspect of Will. The question is not “what” it is, but instead – “who”; who is experiencing the most wonderful journey in all worlds together. Moreover, “who am I” is not a question at all. Why would we wonder about something that is obvious? A question is asked to get an answer. But if “who am I” is not a question but a confirmatory suggestion, then it would mean that “Who” is simply “I.” If you want to say you are hungry, you will say, “I am hungry” if you happen to call yourself “Who,” then it would be like this: “Who is hungry.” If you wanted to convey to people that Who is your name, then you would simply say: “Who am I.” Quite simply, there is no question mark at the end of this sentence but a full stop. Who “is” Me. The moment you say “Who am I,” that moment you will feel that “Who” as a synonym for “I.” The Aspirant can very often come across the realization that “I am” is an illusion. Which is entirely wrong – there is no “am.” Therefore, the only illusion is “I.”
But there is one such essential and a seemingly mundane question that was addressed to all of us when we were children and that we often now ask our own sons and daughters: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” In that simple question really lies a trace to the Great Work. There is a particular kind of simplicity surrounding the Abramelin operation. Still, there is an entirely open neurotic position in us toward that simplicity, as if it is against us, and we clearly feel a dose of distrust, meanness, and lies toward everything so simple that enables the realization of something as simple as the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. There are simple social positions that very concisely illuminate the question of Will. Suppose you experience a shipwreck and find yourself on a desert island. And as months and years are passing adjusting to a lonely life, and after you have realized that help will never come, that it is impossible to leave the island and that you will spend the rest of your life in that place, what would you do? A very simple question, what would you do on that island? What kind of life plan would you make? In the beginning, it would certainly be a technical mastery of life in the wilderness, which would take a lot of time, but let’s assume you have set up a perfect life in an exile, you have built a whole system of survival, and then what? What would you do? A completely similar thing is achieved if we assume that today is the last day of your life; what would you do that last day? Or you were left to spend the last minutes of your life, what would you think about? What would you do deep in your mind if you were living the last minute of your life? Our feeling for our own Angel gets an utterly different epithet when we apply it to everyday life. When we see a beautiful woman walking in front of us without seeing her face, what kind of face do we imagine? When we see beautiful and attractive legs, a projection of the character immediately appears in our mind, which is very close to the nature of the Angel. That feeling, almost ancient and yet instantly recognizable, which boosts your pleasure, stirring your mental processes, burning and bringing heat throughout all your being. Feel that moment when our mind builds up that character, provoked by the physical appearance of those legs, or that woman walking in front of us without seeing her face. That face that we do not see but know what it looks like is something closer to the Angel than all the rituals put together.
The Pure Will is not invented by Crowley, just as gravity is not invented by Newton. The concept of what we called “gravity” existed and will exist all the time, with or without us, and just us this simply does not mean people floated around weightless in space before Newton, it also directs us to think that being a Thelemite is not conditioned by time nor space. You could do your Will in all the Æons, just as you could still be crucified together with the dying god, even hundreds a year from now. Currently, there are millions of sparklings of consciousness which are doing their Will in millions of known and unknown ways and possibilities. It is not about time and space at all. It is all about you. The main quest and source for your searching are that Selfhood, which will change and bend time and space, realms and planes to play better and have more fun. And during that time, we are more and more becoming a child. For the time is not returning, nor going. We are going. We are returning home.
The idea of Will has nothing to do with the Knowledge of Will. This explosive discovery destroys the entire concept of the Golden Dawn, which is that Abramelin operation is simply not possible in the form that the Aspirant imagines. In fact, it is not possible at all. Which does not mean he will not perform it because of that. The Aspirant should openly talk about the phenomenon of Abramelin’s work. He should approach this topic with love, feeling owe and trembling, building himself in that love and in that work every day, waiting and planning, getting closer and closer every day. But more than anything, that approach must be free and void of any presuppositions. Like when I tell you that the Angel will call you by phone exactly in 56 minutes, you will find yourself waiting a minute before the expected time; and just precisely before that call is where the whole point of Abramelin operation lies. Therefore, the practical lesson of this grandiose and sacred invocation is nothing but an act of active anticipation, a very simple internal attitude and mind posture that brings such a magnificent and penetrating experience. We can find a similar thing in fishing when we look at the float expecting the fish to pull it. It is exactly the same mechanism of working with the Angel, but this time, your naked soul will be on the hook, like a fish under that float. Also, a simple setting can be achieved when you read a prayer – try listening to what you are saying at the same time. As if you are carefully listening to someone who is praying near you, you have to concentrate to hear what you are saying. You have to be more of an ear that listens than a tongue that speaks. Now, are you the one who is speaking or the one who is listening? Aren’t both choices equally wrong? This is the whole point of the Knowledge and Conversation.
Learning is possible when we listen. When we speak, then we are sharing and teaching someone else. The Knowledge and Conversation with the Holy Guardian Angel is the only occurrence when we are learning as we speak – simply because we are speaking to ourselves. Trapped in that moment, everlasting Selfhood talk and listen at the same time – by learning and teaching in the same way. Teaching the Self by learning from Self. The whole method of Abramelin was created in the realization of this attitude. There is such a wonderful comparison to swearing. All the methods together are not as close to the Great Work as it is the most common swear word. Once he has cursed, a man feels particular pleasure from the simple fact that he is then really close to his essence. Pure energy and Pure Will are manifesting in the same way as in swearing, which often has no concrete meaning. All the conditions for the realization of the Great Work are given in those few moments of the duration of that juicy act of swearing. But the most important part of swearing is that during utterance, one is not aware of its meaning at all, even though swearing often means something completely meaningless when words are separated; the very meaning of swearing is something that the one who swears does not have in their mind at all. It only directs the Will like a mold. Every swear word is one little Abramelin. The Aspirant will feel the attraction and the call in each of these things, as much as he will feel the repulsion that drives him from a value against which he has a pre-built defense mechanism, but which teases and entices him in a mean and sophisticated way, precisely because such parables are simple, alive and interesting. He should feel conception of the Great Work in that notion of “interesting,” just like saying “no” is, in fact, the beginning of every good trade. These Angelic decoys for his nature are meaningless and useless only at first sight. A completely striking and almost automatic link we construct every time we think of the Angel is precisely Abramelin operation, in addition to all so many different clues we can follow. Every curiosity which moves us is a sign of only one thing in countless different languages, as much as every event is just one of the endless anagrams of the name of one’s own Angel. Of all the things that happen to you, or at least we think they do, we actually always think of only one thing. Just as our thoughts about the Angel are actually Angel’s thoughts about us. Every feeling we have about the Universe is only part of a broader feeling the Universe has of itself.
There is a quite specific and similar process when we try to remember a forgotten word. For example, I watched a movie which I would like to talk about, but as soon I have started talking about it, I forget its name. I think very hard; I try to remember a movie poster, trailer, soundtrack, but I still fail to tell you the name. Then, as we are speaking about some irrelevant and ordinary things, half an hour later or more, the name strikes me. It is as if my effort ran unconsciously until the revelation had knocked when I was not making an effort consciously. That is very close to what we need to understand as a part of the Abramelin process. As long as you push it, you will not reach it. When you forget about it, you will have it.
The whole concept of the Angel is like the phenomenon of false memory; if I ask you now if you remember the moment when you were little and when you cried in school after spilling ink on your work in art class, you will now clearly create that event but of a completely different kind from that created by mere imagination. You will make an effort to remember, and you will have a thought which you called a remembering, even if that has not ever happened. But for you, it will be the truth, even if the image is false, as you will remember something that does not exist and which has not happened at all. And from now on, every time I remind you of this, you will always recall the image of that same memory, as if it has really happened. When I ask you to focus on the Angel now, you are not focusing on him in the least, but on what you think the Angel should be the moment you have realized it. This false memory of something yet to come creates an exceptional circumstance in our minds which moves a particular part of our mind, which, by observing the false past, constructs and projects a longing future, the way it actually wants it to happen because it knows it has already happened.
The Knowledge and Conversation needs a solution that goes beyond the scope of the problem. That solution must be so effective that it completely disregards the problem as such: I have recently witnessed an event that so fantastically describes what I want to say. I was sitting in the garden of a nice restaurant, and while having some quite irrelevant thoughts, I noticed a young man who parked his car almost arrogantly in a very inappropriate place. He got out of the car nonchalantly and did something extremely unusual: he lifted his wipers up. It took me a few moments to realize the complete brilliance of his idea, where he knew so perfectly what he was doing. Very simple, almost stupid, but so devilishly efficient: anyone who notices such an arrogantly parked car will first feel anger and rage, and almost everyone would want to scratch the paint of such a person with a key or to dent an expensive piece of plastic, or to lift up and break windshield wipers, but immediately after that, he usually feels the fear of doing any of those things. But by then, all of them have noticed the wipers already raised, and that moment completely melted all their anger and readiness to do something with that car. Someone has already been brave instead of them, someone took justice into his own hands, and they now do not have to risk being seen lifting the wipers up because someone has already done it. They will feel all the gratitude of this world toward that unknown hero because he stood up and said no to arrogant parking. After seeing the wipers raised, they will ultimately give up doing something similar by themselves, because if they even approach the car and the owner comes along, then they will be guilty of something they have not done, and now the owner will feel angry with them for raised wipers, what they do not want at all. Therefore, no one will approach that car, and everyone will laugh because someone lifted up the evil owner’s wipers and made fun of him. No one will do anything simply because the owner has already done it all before them. The owner will then come and return the wipers he lifted himself and go blessed further into the world. The whole way in which the strategy of Abramelin operation is set up is something quite like this. You must somehow bypass the whole script, leaving the role of the accused while assuming the innocent role. To dismiss the role of the Aspirant and to take on the role of the Angel.
As much as everyday consciousness is different from that in a lucid dream, so different is the Angel from this wakefulness. No consciousness is either right or wrong, and not one serves to know the realm in which we dwell, but to experience that realm and to be contented by it. Abramelin does not serve to teach but to wean off. Six months do not serve to get closer, but on the contrary, they move us further away. That whole time provokes the transcendence and rebellion of nature when we realize that we have not been closer to the Angel for a single second of those six months than we have been with ourselves all that period while trying to jump over our own shadow so persistently, yet in vain during all that time.
The work of Abramelin is constructed just to be “difficult,” which is merely an Ego word. In fact, the moment you looked for an easier approach, you said “no” to the Angel. What would be less difficult, 1 month less? 1 week less? Few hours less? You are either the one with the Angel or not. There are not months nor timing which stop “you” being with the Angel. It is just “you” who is in charge of such a separation and who looked for some “other” method just as an excuse for not being the “same” one. That is the whole point of the Great Work. Whatever you do, and no matter how much you do it, if you work inflaming thyself in prayer and invoking often, it will always result in the attainment of the Great Work. Let us even try not to do anything for six months, and we would achieve the same. Let us try to withdraw and hate the Angel for six months, let us try to avoid only him and nothing else with all our might for 6 months, and we would achieve the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. The Neophyte goes down, and in all that descent, his mind is thinking of one hell of a game from which he finds it difficult to get out. It is a rabbit hole story.
The rabbit hole runs deep, the Neophyte learned that early on. But the main point is on the rabbit, not the hole. We often keep exploring the hole whole of our life, forgetting that we should chase the rabbit in the first place. The story about a rabbit’s hole is not about the hole. It is about the rabbit. It is about the Angel.
In this case of ours, we only own two aids indeed – our naked body and a very naked soul. We follow the idea that these two sacraments are enough for our great experiment. But they are also completely powerless if we are not ready to ride on the wave of pure love. Moreover, we must first understand the essence of love before we undertake anything in that holy experiment. There is such a fantastic relationship between love and infatuation. If an individual could be in love without an idea and love without an object, he would truly accomplish the Great Work. Every achievement of the grade is in itself an illusory phenomenon; only the Adept’s love is pure and true. It has no dimension because it does not exist, but because of it – everything else does. His Will is neither Bhakti nor Dhyana; his Will is Yoga. Because the Adept cannot make anyone love him. What he does is to love, not to be loved. “I” cannot accomplish this. Only “you” can do that. Man is only an onomatopoeia of that love, while his whole life is a metaphor for the Angel. It is the spelling of the Universe, like the beat of life setting the rhythm for the dance of Pan. Indeed, “I love you” is the only doctrine of the Adept.
The path of Adepthood is not an attempt to tame the Ego in the least. The Ego cannot be tamed or killed because it is also part of Angel’s seduction. Moreover, the Adept is the Angel, the way “I” understands him. There is no difference between the Ego and the Angel; the Ego is the “difference.” It is difficult to explain, but the nature of the Angel and the Angel are not the same things, every time the Angel has been mentioned, an illusion of the Angel is created. The Will itself is the Self; it is the living Spirit inside as much as outside. On the outside, the projection is perceived as the Angel, while on the inside, it is perceived as the Will. The Angel is out of duality, out of any division. He does not need the Other to be the One. The Angel despises the path of Yoga, he himself is Yoga. He does not seek the Other to be One, it is enough for him to be Himself. The mere invocation and desire are pieces of evidence of separation. The invocation of the Angel is the same as banishing Him. In case you fail to invoke the Angel, it is good. As long as you fail to invoke Him. The Aspirant thinks that he should “go” to God, or he should “wait” for God to call him – he just has to understand that the Angel is always here – for he is the Angel himself. This is the essential difference between the Aspirant and the Angel. The Angel does not remember the Aspirant because He cannot forget him, he is wholly preoccupied with the Aspirant to the extent that he is the one who manifests the action and aspiration during Abramelin operation, not the Aspirant.
The Neophyte meets the Angel for the first time, although the Angel meets the Neophyte continually. Our being tells us that we are all One, that everything is fine, and we find the consolation of the most pleasant kind in those words. But we are not. We are not One. “We” cannot be One. That is why it’s called “we” – because there is “I” next to something else. “We” is the most disgusting dirty game of the Ego, the strongest joker in the pack of his deception. The multitude is not separated from the One, but the One manifests itself as a multitude. It is indeed a divine play, like when man actively strives for Angel’s knowledge; at the same time, he must be calm and passive to sense Angel’s presence. The Adept presented the approach to work through the form of the Holy Hexagram. Its shape is made up of an upright blue triangle, not a red one; thus, it is the only accurate method of the Adept. Every ritual or meditation must be a form of passive expectation toward beloving Angel, with attention and joy, like a child playing hide and seek and now waiting to be found. And the more he waits, the more joyous and ecstatical it will be. At the same time, the joy of hiding and the Will to be found – that is the whole point of Abramelin’s work. No matter how well a child hides, the perfection of that hidden place is not what betrays him. It is the child itself. It is the child’s impatience that betrays the child. That relationship is all that needs to be said about the Angel. Because the Angel did not hide. It is you who hid.
The Great Work is not an occurrence but a realization. It is not framed so as to decide when to start or end. We expect it to have a logical curve and an announcement of a storm approaching gradually, which is a complete misconception. It does not happen in the usual sense of the word, but on the contrary, more like a sudden memory of something that has not happened to us at all. When our being dives into the LVX, such light has no dawn, noon, no process of light and romantic descent around the horizon, burning the skies with its color. This kind of LVX has nothing in common with Liber Resh. On the contrary, the whole idea of this exercise removes us from that light in such a damn way. There is no horizon here in relation to which one might say it is either dawn or dusk; there is no time here as such where we could see whether the sun is setting or rising. Such light stands still both in place and time because it does not have any spatial or temporal relations in itself at all. Such light has no phases. Such light has no time frame in which it would then shine more and more until it finally has had us illuminated. That light shined upon us all the time before we had even grasped the concept of time before we even perceived that light. The Great Work is not something we expect, but a realization that it is grounded in us without it happening at all, without any fanfare or announcement. The Great Work is not work but working. It is not Great, but Deep. In a spiritual sense, it is spelled and written completely wrong as it is put in the wrong time tense and a wrong grammar form. In the end, we get a mistranslation of a thought that now has a completely different meaning from what is really happening.
The night before his dawn, the Adept has only one principle that keeps him on his way, and that is “tomorrow never comes.” It is the longing of a beauty driving her darling away, postponing their meeting with her heart weeping. Yet, their union is inevitable. But not today. The Neophyte is that “not today.” The whole concept of the Angel is a cuckoos’ egg that is vilely planted by Binah, but it is caught by deception too – because instead of the winged Angel, he sees the impersonal Self from the shell. The whole point of human existence is reflected in the understanding of this code. None of the issues that we’ve been through so far, and those we have yet to tackle, do require more profound analysis or contemplation, but only dedication and, most importantly of all – a childish sense for play. All our failures stem from the simple fact that we are no longer a child. It is of utmost importance to understand the Great Work as a Great Play. There is no God’s working. Only a child playing. There is no God’s plan. Only a Child’s play. Those who remain a child are lost in vain, but those who become a child are Adepts of the highest rank, crowned and conquering. The essence of True Nature is actually in awakening, not in discovering. The Angel is neither beyond nor above the magician. He is neither other, another, second nor third. He is One with him. You will discover nothing new; there is indeed no new knowledge to be gained about yourself. You already know it, but you are just not aware of it. All the while, you must be vigilant enough not to slide into the world of dreams but still sleepy enough to see things from within. If we are to gather all the grades under just one name, it would be – oblivion. But if we should choose the name for the true attainment, it would be – reminiscence. The Aspirant says: “I am trying.” The Adept replies: “I remember.”
The Aspirant can be whatever he wants. It is enough for the Angel to be what he is. Understanding this difference would help in Abramelin more than all the months of magical retreat combined. The question of the Angel is not a question of magick or occult sciences, but perception. The Angel is a dead angle of the Aspirant’s attention. Nothing more. In our life, senses play an essential role in the perception of the world, so every perception is a reflection, a distorted transmission of what is perceived as an object of attention. And whether it is color, shape, or taste, above all, it is another imprint of what we got through our nervous system. The Aspirant travels on the freeway of life using mirrors that reflect and distort the real picture of his surroundings; he handles it all very well, but the problem is that the Angel is in the dead corner of all our mirrors. Although he sees us, we do not see him. The entire Golden Dawn is based on this phenomenon, which is always and exclusively an illusion – the illusion of perception, by no means the illusion of existence. It is the absence of evidence, not evidence of absence. Therefore, the Angel is the absence of all perceptions – not their sublimation. It is the perception that creates the dead angle; the Angel does not exist in reality as long as there is no consciousness. The moment the awareness of oneself has been embodied, the perception of the Angel is created as a natural effect of the shadow.
You do not see the whole thing. You are the whole thing. You are just a poetic expression, an arabesque of all things inside of one wholeness, in the whole of you. The Angel is a phenomenon of distorted attention in the magician. No, the magician is a distorted reflection of the Universe in the Angel himself. And even now, the lure of the Abyss expands its influence upon your soul subverting the ultimate and terrible truth that is so far away from all this: which is that you are Not what you are.
There are no words in the end because there is no end. There is always everlasting going in the present, with love and understanding. Loving what we are and understanding what we are not. And even more – loving what we are not and understanding what we are.
Frater 273
Frater 273 | Reflections on Thelema 
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