Magick Without Tears by Aleister Crowley
Source: http://hermetic.com/crowley/magick-without-tears/mwt_12.html
Mark well this first distinction: the “Black Magician” or Sorcerer is hardly even a distant cousin of the “Black Brother.” The difference between a sneak-thief and a Hitler is not too bad an analogy.
The Sorcerer may be—indeed he usually is—a thwarted disappointed man whose aims are perfectly natural. Often enough, his real trouble is ignorance; and by the time he has become fairly hot stuff as a Black Magician, he has learnt that he is getting nowhere, and finds himself, despite himself, on the True Path of the Wise.
“Invoking Zeus to swell the power of Pan,
The prayer discomfits the demented man;
Lust lies as still as Love.”Thereupon he casts away his warlock apparatus like a good little boy, finds the A.’.A.’., and lives happily ever after.
The Left-hand Path is a totally different matter. Let us start at the beginning.
You remember my saying that only two operations were possible in Nature: addition and subtraction. Let us apply this to magical progress.
What happens when the Aspirant invokes Diana, or calls up Lilith? He increases the sum of his experiences in these particular ways. Sometimes he has a “liaison-experience,” which links two main lines of thought, and so is worth dozens of isolated gains.
Now, if there is any difference at all between the White and the Black Adept in similar case, it is that the one, working by “love under will” achieves a marriage with the new idea, while the other, merely grabbing, adds a concubine to his harem of slaves. 1, 2
The about-to-be-Black Brother constantly restricts himself; he is satisfied with a very limited ideal; he is afraid of losing his individuality—reminds one of the “Nordic” twaddle about “race-pollution.” 3
Have you seen the sand-roses of the Sahara? Such is the violence of the Khamsin that it whips grains of sand together, presses them, finally builds them into great blocks, big enough and solid enough to be used for walls in the oasis. And beautiful! Whew! For all that, they are not real rocks. Leave hem in peace, with no possible interference—what happens? (I brought some home, and put them “in safety” as curiosities, and as useful psychometrical tests.) Alas! Time is enough. Go to the drawer which held them; nothing remains but little piles of dust.
“Now Master!” (What reproach in the tone of your voice!) All right, all right! Keep your hair on!—I know that is the precise term used in The Vision and the Voice, to describe the Great White Brother or the Babe of the Abyss; but to him it means victory; to the Left-Hander it would mean defeat, ruin devastating, irremediable, final. It is exactly that which he most dreads; and it is that to which he must in the end come, because there is no compensating element in his idea of structure. 4 Nations themselves never grow permanently by smash-and-grab methods; one merely acquires a sore spot, as in the case of Lorraine, perhaps even Eire. (Though Eire is using just that formula of Restriction, shutting herself up in her misery and poverty and idiot pride, when a real marriage with and dissolution in, a real live country would give her new life. The “melting-pot” idea is the great strength of America.)
Consider the Faubourg St. Germain aristocracy—now hardly even a sentimental memory. The guillotine did not kill them; it was their own refusal to adapt themselves to the new biological conditions of political life. It was indeed their restriction that rotted them in the first instance; had Lafayette or Mirabeau been trusted with full power, and supplied with adequate material, a younger generation of virtue, the monarchy might still be ruling France.
But then (you ask) how can a man go so far wrong after he has, as an Adeptus Minor, attained the “Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel”?
Recall the passage in the 14th Aethyr “See where thine Angel hath led Thee”, and so on. Perhaps the Black Brother deserts his Angel when he realises the Programme. 5, 6Perhaps his error was so deeply rooted, from the very beginning, that it was his Evil Genius that he evoked.
In such cases the man’s policy is of course to break off all relations with the Supernal Triad, and to replace it by inventing a false crown, Daäth.7 To them Knowledge will be everything, and what is Knowledge but the very soul of Illusion?
Notes
- Hubbard self-hypnotized himself as follows: “Material things are yours for the asking. Men are your slaves. Elemental spirits are your slaves. You are power among powers, light in the darkness, beauty in all.” Ref. The Admissions ↩
- Scientology Basics such as the ARC triangle, KRC triangle, the tone scale and Science of Survival are tools with which Scientologists seek psychological and physical control over their targets. ↩
- Hubbard built a Bridge called “Total Freedom,” while placing extreme controls on his members with his system of Ethics. ↩
- Hubbard’s Suppressive Person doctrine simply identifies and eliminates the “compensating elements” such as “counter-intentions” and “other-intentions.” Ref. HCO PL 18 June 1968 Ethics ↩
- The Admissions contain several mentions of Hubbard’s “guardian,” although his suggestions limited and denied the guardian control. “Nothing can intervene between you and your Guardian. She cannot be displaced because she is too powerful. She does not control you. She advises you. You may or may not take the advice. You are an adept and have a wonderful and brilliant mind of your own. You have magnificent power but you are humble and calm and patient in that power. For you control all forces under you as you wish. The strength of your Guardian aids you always and can never depart or be repelled. Your faith in her and in God is unswerveable, blind, powerful and you never, never doubt their good intent toward you. They work with you. You help them exert their plans. They have faith unbounded in you.” ↩
- There is nothing in Scientology philosophy or practice about achieving conversation with a holy guardian angel. In Scientology, Hubbard is Source. Scientologists learn that their goal is to be living embodiments of LRH technology. Ref. Golden Age of Tech brochure. ↩
- Hubbard defined Scientology as the science of “knowing how to know.” ↩
Hubbard was a Black Brother, in word, deed, and intent.