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A young man there, sole among them not
 Children, answered the Glorious One,
yet an Arahat, turned pale. He alone was of
 do not be so foolish as to think that death is
Western birth in all that multitude.
necessarily an evil. I have not come to
 Brother Abhavananda,4 little friend,
found a Hundred Years Club, and to include
said the Buddha,  what can we predicate of
mosquitoes in the membership. In this case
all existin things?  Lord! replied the
to have kept Perdu R Abu alive was to have
neophyte,  they are unstable, everything is
played into the hands of his enemies. My
sorrow, in them is no inward Principle, as
First Precept is merely a general rule.3 In
some pretend, that can avoid, that can hold
itself aloof from, the forces of decay. 1
The Buddha had such long ears that he could
 And how do you know that, little
cover the whole of his face with them. Ears are
Brother? smiled the Thrice-Honoured One.
referred to Spirit in Hindu symbolism, so that the
 Lord, I perceive this Truth wheneverI legend means he could conceal the lower elements
and dwell in this alone.
1 2
Thirst: i.e. desire in its evil sense. Here is the little rift within the lute which
2
Ignorance. alienated Crowley from active work on Buddhist
3
Doubt. lines; the orthodox failing to see his attitude.
4 3
 Bliss-of-non-existence. One of Crowley s A more likely idea that the brilliantly logical
eastern names. nonsense of  Pansil, supra.
77
THE THREE CHARACTERISTICS
the bulk of cases one should certainly abstain second, that the desire for existence only
from destroying life, that is, wantonly and leads to sorrow ; that the ceasing from
wilfully: but I cannot drink a glass of water existence is the ceasing of sorrow (the third)
without killing countless myriads of living ; and you would seek in the fourth the Way,
beings. If you knew as I do, the conditions the Noble Eightfold Path.
of existence: struggle deadly and inevitable,  I know, O Arahats, that you do not need
every form of life the inherent and immiti- this instruction : but my words will not stay
gable foe of every other form, with few, few here : they will go forth and illuminate the
exceptions, you would not only cease to talk whole system of ten thousand worlds, where
of the wickedness of causing death, but you Arahats do not grow on every tree. Little
would perceive the First Noble Truth, that brothers, the night is fallen : it were well to
no existence can be free from sorrow ; the sleep.
1902
AMBROSII MAGI HORTUS ROSARUM*
Translated into English by Christeos Luciftias. Printed by W. Black, at the
Wheatsheaf in Newgate, and sold at the Three Keys in Nags-Head Court,
Gracechurch St.
Opus IT is fitting that I, Ambrose, called I.A.O., should set down the life of
our great Father (who now is not, yet whose name must never be spoken
among men), in order that the Brethren may know what journeys he
undertook in pursuit of that Knowledge whose attainment is their constant
study.
Prima Materia. It was at his 119th year,1 the Star Suaconch2 being in the sign of the
A. O. Lion, that our Father set out from his Castle of Ug3 to attain the Quint-
essence or Philosophical Tincture. The way being dark and the Golden
Custodes.4 Dawn at hand, he did call forth four servants to keep him in the midst of
the way, and the Lion roared before him to bid the opposers beware of his
coming. On the Bull he rode, and on his left hand and his right marched
the Eagle and the Man. But his back was uncovered, seeing that he
would not turn.
Sapiens dom- And the Spirit of the Path met him. It was a young girl of two and
inatibur astris.
twenty years, and she warned him that without the Serpent5 his ways
were but as wool cast into the dyer s vat. Two-and-twenty scales had the
Serpent, and every scale was a path, and every path was alike an enemy
and a friend. So he set out, and the darkness grew upon him. Yet could
S. S. D. D.
he well perceive a young maiden6 having a necklace of two-and-seventy
* It would require many pages to give even a sketch of this remarkable
document. The Qabalistic knowledge is as authentic as it is profound, but there are
also allusions to contemporary occult students, and a certain very small amount of
mere absence of meaning. The main satire is of course on the  Chymical Marriage
of Christian Rosencreutz. A few only of the serious problems are elucidated in
footnotes.
1
I.e. when 118 = change, a ferment, strength. Also = before he was 120, the
mystic age of a Rosicrucian.
2
Her-shell = Herschell, or Uranus, the planet which was ascending (in Leo) at
Crowley s birth.
3
Vau and Gimel, the Hierophant and High-Priestess in the Tarot. Hence  from
his Castle of Ug means  from his initiation. We cannot in future do more than
indicate the allusions.
4
The Kerubim.
5
See Table of Correspondences. [A Table of Correspondences was intended to
appear as an appendix to the first volume of Crowley s Collected Works. It is not
in the 1970s reprint from which I am working, and may not have been in the
original. See 777 instead  T.S.]
6
The 22nd Key of the Tarot. The other Tarot symbols can be traced by any one
who possesses, and to some degree understands, a pack of the cards. The occult
views of the nature of these symbols are in some cases Crowley s own.
78
79
AMBROSII MAGI HORTIS ROSARUM
pearls, big and round like the breasts of a sea-nymph ; and they gleamed
round like moons. She held in leash the four Beasts, but he strode boldly [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]