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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
We are biased to the Truth, in which we believe and for which we live in the conviction that every event is a projection of that truth. Finally, our experience of truth is only a projection of its influence, so it is precisely the truth that I am talking about now. Even if it were not in the form we could understand in our minds, even if it did not exist at all, it would still be precisely that truth, which does not exist. Why then we named it the truth when its nature is neither true nor false? I do not know.
Our experience of initiation is one of the strongest levers of our inner change, which is shown in each Aspirant in a different, self-unique way. Initiation is more particular than any particularity, and as each one of us is unique, so is our initiation peculiar and just its own. Still, as much every consciousness is absurd without initiation, so is the initiation pointless without the Self. On the one hand, it can be said that we were initiated at the moment when we were born, that we touched the enlightenment at the very moment we fell. Initiation is a phenomenon of time in fact, not consciousness; that is, the discovery of all dimensions of the Universe in all its possible and impossible variants.
The essence of each act is the integration of all its structures into the entirety of the Great Work; life itself is composed of only one movement that brings a true change—initiation. What we want to say here is that initiation is not a straightforward process; moreover, it involves a series of minor, indirect changes that integrated altogether bring great transformation. However, each Aspirant should bear in mind the nature of initiation must be always simple and above all natural for every consciousness.
Initiation is pointless without experience as much experience is meaningless without initiation. Each of your experiences is the initiation as much as in every feeling of yours are hiding the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Your experience of initiation, hunting you then as it is hunting you now, makes you do unusual things, which are not learned, which are not decent. It is essential that you penetrate the meaning of those words—to realize that your experience of Initiation is absurd and that each of these three words is one of the three aggregate states of the same idea. It is yours because it is You, experience because it is direct and immediate and it concerns only Yourself, Initiation because it is only Yours. There is You, there is Yourself, and there is Yours. You, Yourself and Yours – a name, a surname and a nickname of an Ego. Therefore, your experience of Initiation is better known as: Know Your Self. Within our great Order, there is an initiation; which is wrong, because it is initiation and nothing else but that. Every Aspirant within his Great Work is experiencing a great paradox, which is the realization that he cannot go through the initiation unless he is initiated already. But it seems that the work itself completely resolves this problem; in fact, it can be said that the thing is so simple that in all its simplicity it is arduous. The Aspirant does not need to project the essence of this problem before time, but to leave himself to the principles on which his Grade is built upon.
The greatest initiation is life and life in death. There is no other work than these two things, and our entire art is just a mere test of our courage to accept this initiation. However, we need to be bent by the fact that a small number of man are truly aware of what life is. How can one even rejoice for the end of the road, or even for being on the road if he is unaware of where he is going at all? Firstly, one needs to determine what these words mean to him: life and death, what they evoke and what kind of experience they bring. Therefore, life is not initiation, living is an initiation, and the difference between this is a comparison between the day and night. But, let us leave aside these customs of Sebek and devote ourselves to the new customs of Ibis, as it is stated in the “Book of the Heart girt with a Serpent.”
No one was born to be initiated but is initiated because he was born. Yet, at one moment in our lives, apparently random and unforeseen, the initiation will take us under its own, starting to fulfill without even asking. Its efficiency is faster than its truth, which is why it is so unique and completely independent from the intelligence of the man. In addition to all other aids that he will surely find on his path, the Probationer has two essential weapons which are: one weapon for attack and one for defense. For defense, it will be truthfulness; the highest virtue of all and attribute of Parsifal. How powerful is he who lives with the truth of the world, who counts the kisses of lovely Adonai. For attack, he will need nothing else than love; only love connects the incompatible, only love is possible when everything else is hopeless. And, only love crashes every possible defense, for defense from love is none.
Within our Order, there are only two official initiations, and both, regardless of the situation in the past, are exclusively given in the form of self-initiation. Their full value is in the Aspirant’s work with himself, as the perfection of the ritual does not lie in the perfection of its performance for it is unattainable. At the end of his Probation, if he satisfied all the elements of his Grade, the Probationer is given to pass the Ritual of the Pyramid, or Liber DCLXXI vel Pyramidos, which confirms him as a Neophyte. In the same way, a Neophyte passes through the Ritual CXX, of Passage through the Duat, or Liber Cadaveris, which establishes him as a Zelator. It would be wrong to assume whether the ritual of the Pyramid is the final act of the Probationer, or it is the introductory chapter of a Neophyte. Perhaps both conclusions are equally correct. These rituals contain the mysteries that an Aspirant’s unconscious will roll and shape further during the Grades, and it cannot be said with certainty what kind of performance would be considered as appropriate.
The ritual of the Pyramid, or Pyramidos hereinafter, is built on the basis of the dramatic ritual, where an Aspirant assumes specific godly forms and passes through a certain process of transformation. This process of change will accompany him all along the region of the Golden Dawn, to the achievement of the Adeptus Minor. This process will, of course, only modify its form, depending on the Grade, but the same essence is present both in the Probationer and in the Philosophus; it is about a subtle, inner experience that initiates a major change, soon to be realized. It should not be confused with Liber ThROA, which is a group ritual of initiation in which, besides the initiate, roles also have officers of the Order. But is there anyone else in the great Pyramid, except an Aspirant? Is he not all alone, is the Pyramid not constructed for him and himself only? Above all, the Aspirant should comprehend the formula and essence of the ritual, and that his contemplation on all this should be part of his work on the Grade.
Many discussions were conducted around the secret word of a Neophyte. What can be found in public records is the first and the last letter of that word, and the numerical value of 93. M….M. Although every careful researcher will find how it was derived, it is more important to outline the principle based on which the whole thing works. The word is never pronounced in the outer, and it is never transmitted in the way as it is done with other words. Above all, one should take into account that M….M is not a word but a formula, which only represents or resembles a subtle inner story, and it is necessary to obtain it through one’s Zelator in its proper form. The secret word is the axis of the whole of this initiation, which is fully nourished by the vibration of that word. It never gets transmitted, except to the Neophyte of the A∴A∴ and there are strong reasons why it is so. First and foremost, the very process of finding this word starts much earlier than in Pyramidos, if nothing else then precisely at this point, now reading these words represents the achievement and valuable process by itself. The very word is the mental arabesque about settling the Aspirant’s soul inside the Pyramid, imprinting his mind into its monumental heart. This word is the formula of conversion of two entirely different currencies; those elemental and those spiritual ones. This word is a translator, which יהוה turns into יהשוה, it is a formula that explains life itself. This word, like magical words of the old times used by a necromancer to raise the dead, will imprint the soul into dead things and make them alive. It is symbolically responsible for our true awakening, our true initiation. And as every Pyramid is a tomb of the body, so it is equally a cradle of the soul. And here, a born man occupies the place of other unborn.
The word is not hiding from the Probationer, but from “his” Binah, and we will have an opportunity to discuss more about this brilliant tale later. It can be openly noticed that phenomenon of the words in the A∴A∴ has a very special place. As a Neophyte, the Aspirant receives from his Zelator the hidden word, then, as an accomplished Adept he receives the name of his Angel, and finally, as Magus, he obtains the word of Æon. All three Grades are pervaded by acceptance of certain words which fulfill the utmost domains of human existence, the words under which the whole Universe shakes, as the ether through which these vibrations are transmitted, from Yesod to Chokmah.
The entire formula is somewise shown in Liber HHH, in what is referred to as the first meditation (called MMM). We can freely interpret that this practice in meditational aspect is identical to the dramatic form of the Pyramidos and that both practices are actually synonymous for the same experience. Meditation practice from Liber HHH is analogous to the Pyramidos, yet it should be noticed that it is given only at the Grade of a Zelator. It is assumed that the Probationer, or the future Neophyte, is not even intended to understand the secret word except that it may be in possession of its form, he is still far from understanding the nature of its vibration.
We will now include the first meditation from Liber HHH, in order to get a deeper understanding of the formula of this magick.
There are two places in this meditation that are crucial, giving a clear connection with the Pyramidos; it is inside the seventh point – the part with 22 snake bites, and the eighth point – as a mystery of colored crosses. In MMM, 22 bites of Serpent are identical to the 22 refrains of Pyramidos where the Aspirant symbolically passes through 22 paths, each time stating: “I am under the Shadow of the Wings,” apparently alluding to the influence of Adonai over Paroketh. In MMM meditation, in a similar way to Pyramidos, the same wings of his own Angel are now wings of the falcon, which heals the Aspirant 22 times from the Serpents bites.
LIBER PYRAMIDOS:
“I am a fool, a flutterer!
I am under the Shadow of the Wings!
I am a liar & a sorcerer.
I am under the Shadow of the Wings!
I am so fickle that I scorn the bridle.
I am under the Shadow of the Wings!
I am unchaste, voluptuous and idle.
I am under the Shadow of the Wings!”
… (22 times altogether)
LIBER HHH
“Two and twenty times shall he figure to himself that he is bitten by a serpent, feeling even in his body the poison thereof. And let each bite be healed by an eagle or hawk, spreading its wings above his head, and dropping thereupon a healing dew.”
The Pyramidos parallel with the MMM meditation reveals much deeper connections than at first glance. Both things point to the same formula, and it can be said with certainty that there is not enough praise for each moment of the Aspirant’s commitment towards these sublime practices.
Finally, the mystery of MMM crosses points to the secret word in a way that “it shall serve as a test of himself and his fellows.”[1]Aleister Crowley – Liber HHH sub figura CCCXLI, section MMM.The crosses and their colors give us an interesting numerical value if we join Paths and Sephiroth in a certain compound. These colors are black, red, green, gold and silver. One of interesting solution could be: Tau (32) ת + Tzaddi (צ (28 + Daleth (ד (14 + Tiphareth ☉ (6) + Gimel (ג (13 w= 93. Compare with M…M, which is a secret word of the Neophyte with the same gematrical value. Black for Tau, red for Tzaddi and the Emperor, green for Daleth and the Empress, golden for Tiphareth, silver for Gimel and the High Priestess. This silver is then again black, like the path of the High Priestess, who crossed the desert and steps into the blackness of the Abyss. And so the word begins and ends with the blackness; first of Malkuth, and then from the darkness of Pan, it raises awareness of the alchemical principles along the Tree of Life. It is easy to notice that in this equation only Tiphareth is the Sephira while the other values are represented by the Paths: the Universe, the Emperor, the Empress, and the High Priestess. This is such an important and powerful riddle that each Aspirant should devote time of his Grade for the careful and detailed study.
This beautiful word reflects in more than a remarkable way the specific feeling that the Neophyte receives, the feeling about the illusion of reality, and even more – the reality of illusion; he equally feels the attraction of the Self, but also the attraction of the mother Earth and the great Binah. Equally terrible, these two forces are doing retaliation on him, and drag his being to the limit of his endurance. The word describes what the Probationer is already beginning to feel very well; terrible pressure on his soul, the feeling as if he is doing something wrong and unbearable sense that he detours from the path. Indeed he is detouring, but from the path of illusion and slavery, and his change in trajectory is the one which creates a distorted experience of going the wrong way. The Neophyte begins what is still preparing for the Probationer because the great and terrible Mother[2]Binah. , for now, has only a threat and a rebuke for her child, which is not yet officially on his feet. The Probationer is still not conscious and directly on the path, as the Neophyte will be, and pressure of reality in him produces the feeling that he will undoubtedly fall. Of course, that depends from case to case, but if it is necessary to say something right on this topic is that the worst thing that can happen to the Probationer is that nothing happens.
If the Aspirant looks closer to the secret word of the Neophyte, he will notice that the beginning and the end of the formula are the same, as the blackness of Malkuth and the depths of Binah. But the sense of equality of these two terms is precisely what creates trouble for him and what makes Probation so turbulent. There is nothing equal in these things, and as long as he realizes that each event in his life is the grip of a serpent around his heart and that every occurrence is dialogue of the Angel with his own soul; he will find joy in every temptation and his Grade serving as polishing stone of his true nature. Let him know that this heavy pressure of temptation is the ripping of his heart, the grip around his soul that drains everything from him, even love, until only one thing remains. Himself.
The beginning and the end of the formula, the blackness of Malkuth and Binah, the first indicating the existence of nonentity, the second the nonentity of existence. Malkuth is so real in its illusion, while Binah’s transiency is the one that creates an utterly persistent disturbance for the Ego.
The dark night of the soul that wraps around the Aspirant, giving the meaning to the whole Probation, conceals a unique phenomenon in our work which is often revealed to the Neophyte. Adonai. In the particular case in the entire Order, the Holy Guardian Angel performs a direct attack on the Aspirant’s Ego and appears partly, in the form of a dream, sudden insight, experience or a strange occurrence of extremely short duration. And all that will happen then is a rebellion of our Shadow towards this divine doing. What we can openly say is that the whole bitter feeling of Probation is actually the natural chemical reaction of the soul before the appearance of the Angel, in the way that same soul does not spoil anything from the first kiss.
The effect of specious downfall is well known to Aspirants as the IAO formula, or the Isis-Apophis-Osiris formula and there is something to be said about it. This is by no means an old-æonic formula, as it can be heard in today’s Thelemic world too often. On the contrary, each formula is timeless, above æonic; what is old or new can only exist in our mind. Each formula is inherently new by itself, as long as our mind applies it to its own and no other benefit. Each formula had its purpose and nature and as such is always the reward of the Ra-Hoor-Khuit. In every one of our actions from buying newspapers or watching movies, to the most profound rituals within our Order, we can always find parts of our being that are old-aeonic, and they are those that we need to transform and convert to the light. They, and not the formulas, are old-aeonic, and they are those which fall under the “direful judgments of Ra Hoor Khuit!” Rituals cannot be old nor can be outdated. But our mind and performance can.
It is extremely important to consider the phenomenon of the IAO formula in this stage of the work. Although it is quite appropriately represented by the myth of Osiris and Isis, above all, it is the instruction on the lever of our mind and is more a matter of psychotherapy than all of the pantheons together. Briefly, after each positive insight, there is a negative fall and the appearance of a dark temptation that one can compare with the midnight darkness. And indeed, then as if all the heavens were against us and as if each aphrodisiac was losing its influence at its most crucial moment. Finally, the stage of transcendence follows, which resembles the victorious arrival of the solar disk that scattered all previous darkness. The IAO formula undoubtedly takes an exceptional place in the life of the Probationer and Neophyte, but it is important to realize that someone can have this process to a lesser or greater extent, as much as some other may not have it at all; and thinking about it should never cause a trigger for creating this phenomenon. From this place, we can openly say that the core, the essence and the importance of the IAO formula are in the occurrence of a negative transfer within our being, every time the light of new joy arises. And when a girl meets a beautiful fellow at dinner, she can quite openly expect something to go wrong the very next day. Once we buy a new car, the next day we notice something completely better in another, when we finally reach the ideal place for a long-awaited vacation, yet in a couple of days, we feel strangely inexplicable discomfort in the found paradise. In other words, in every current joy is a seed of forthcoming sorrow. Dragged by one fantastic mechanism, the Aspirant’s mind projects a curve that goes downwards, weakening his enthusiasm to the point that the same exercise in the same circumstances always has worse result during the second performance. Once when you eagerly try the ritual in a new way, once you discover with excitement what you need to improve, you will experience a unique phenomenon in all your joy and wisdom. Disappointment. So brilliant, when everything comes to its place and you fly ecstatically to the heaven with pure success, that same heaven cruelly closes before you as if you did not understand anything or as someone deliberately played with you some corrupted and evil game.
In this place, we should not surrender to the obvious connection with the alchemical principles of the First Matter and the Gold, which the Aspirant, as Zelator, will learn to its fullest detail. Instead, we will keep on this peculiar phenomenon of darkness, once our being is already bathed in the light, and each time again, wondering where this incomprehensible darkness is coming from. But the answer is so enlightening as the experience of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, by the fact that both things point to the same place. You. The mechanism is quite simple, which does not apply to the solution.
Within each sensation, every experience, there is one thing that is identical in all the senses ever, starting from that wonderful feeling when being thirsty we drink a glass of fresh cold water, or when we sneeze in the morning, when being hungry we swallow that first bite of food, or when we scratch a spot that makes us itch. Because it is not that spot that really itches us. What we call itching is just an illusion of one line which is, like every other line, determined by two points. Us and our Angel. The one who wants and the one what is wanted. Knowledge and Conversation. This Will here and That Angel there. The length of that line, which is limited by two ultimate points of our existence, allows these points to be perceived as such; therefore, the itch is by no means related to the feeling of relief as we scratch that point. This itching leads us to the level of the universe in which we are the one who itches and the one who scratches at the same time – when the sensation of itching and feeling of relief become one whole new experience. When “then” becomes “now”.
And as the itch soothes by directed, purposely will for scratch, so love manifests in the form of accompanying enjoyment which that scratch brings. Itch thus becomes just an instrument of will, but instead of itching which completely disappears in silence, now there is a different, entirely independent feeling of pleasure and delight of the senses by scratching, which unites the sensation of relief and sensation of itching, which unifies the will and the need.
There is only one thing which prevents us from discovering the Self inside this experience of unity. That what we perceive as time; by the moment when we are one with the Will, enjoying the feeling of finding that Will and the feeling of finding the purpose of that Will – in an action that does not need existence but is there solely because of the Will itself. The moment when the agony of itching cease, destroying the entire universe by the decision to simply obey to that unbearable urge to scratch, we declare our need to scratch as a willing and free action, even so, we are neither willing nor free from the itch. Somehow, we are out of that urge and inside of it, at the same time. Thus, at the moment of scratching, we stop being anything else than the pleasure of that act, and right at the time of disappearance of the itch, itch itself is the last thing we have ever thought about. We so delightfully scratch ourselves that we forget we have itching at all, we become a scratch by stopping to be an itch. And when the urge for scratching finally passes, as we come back to conscious here and now, only the sense of elapsed time informs us that the will has been fulfilled and the act has occurred, in what our mind marks as past. Actually, the mind is always in the eternal now, using the excuse of the past just as a lever for moving the Will. That is why we feel pleasure because we feel it now. Because now is feeling through us. Because now is the only accurate feeling of ours. The Adept knows that both this itch and the pleasure of scratching are just a different way of manifesting the same now, different because there is only a different Will in an endlessly same moment. Will for food, therefore, produces a present called hunger, which will last as long as you are feeling hungry now. When you cease to feel hunger, Will moves towards something else, creating a new present which is measured not by seconds but by feelings. And it is precisely at that moment of cessation of itching that Ego enters into the new present, stopping and asking why, stepping out from the same present at that moment. Why did it have to stop, that wonderful stimulation and enjoyment? Where the now disappeared? This is the birth of paradox and the phase of the Apophis inside IAO formula.
The Aspirant can try one very simple and yet powerful technique in which the whole work is listening to your own words while speaking. Next time you talk to somebody, put your whole attention on listening to what you are saying like you are talking to yourself. Just be a listener, not the talker. Let your tongue speak while your mind listens. This exercise is so remarkable that a high state of trance can be achieved in seconds; if it is done the right way, it could lead to the short bliss of the Knowledge and Conversation.
Get yourself at the moment of relief after a sneeze; it is always such an excellent example of Will. A moment after wonderful stimulus vanishes, at that moment of silence when irritation stops and when in a few moments you remain satisfied without any reason. In that golden moment, Ego does not exist; it is only the echo of Will which resonates through the universe creating what we call the memory. Ego is every Will which turns around seeking to see itself, not realizing there is nothing around which is not already in the Self. We give an utterly banal example, but the principle is identical in all acts which consist of a sense; we know that there is no single act in the universe which is not the feeling as such, in the specific sense of the word. We will be especially careful in separating the terms of feeling and sense, in which the difference is as much as between the idea of Will and the Angel. Indeed there is no single event in the universe which 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.
Here we find an object of our interest. Stimulus cessation time defines that same stimulus, and it makes the illusion that instead of Will stands the Ego, who now wants to return that same time in which was the feeling of unity with Adonai, but refusing to see Adonai in that feeling, and in this new experience to see Adonai, and in that new time the one new present in which that same Adonai stands, but more willingly seeking him in something that “passed.” Instead of gaining the light, now the Aspirant’s nature is wrapped by darkness, thinking that it will be easier to spot the light if only briefly, just for a moment, it darkens the world. Precisely at that moment, and in terms of time it is hardly longer than an instant, suffering appears. Finally, a negative transfer occurs; the urge that can later be turned into our habit of ruining everything, destroying everything, banishing all the good. This sublime self-destruction shows us its misery always in the same way that we are living people and living souls. But in a completely wrong way.
We feel like everything is collapsing, that everything we did well was just a dream, as if someone is deliberately doing something to us so we can suffer more. In that temptation, in that dark night of the soul, as it turns wrong whatever we do, and right then just as if some warm, tenuous voice from within tells us we should do nothing and that the night will pass by itself; that we do not need to bring the light because we are the light itself. That all we need is just to endure and wait for tomorrow. And tomorrow is already the new Sun-God.
The Probationer must therefore persevere – persevere and go further. He should not pass through the night, he should not pass anywhere, but just not to stay in place, not to look back, he just needs to go further, over there, wherever, just further, just a step more, an inch more, far from yesterday; his Oath is to move from his place. Because in this move is something which is an important part of our grand experiment, from the very beginning to the farthest corners of the Golden Dawn. That movement, that decision to move from a place when the whole universe orders otherwise, and more importantly – the urge for that movement, is the A∴A∴ in its true essence.
IAO formula and the phase of Apophis is omnipresent with its mechanism in all aspects of our art, but has a very special place in the life of a Probationer. At first glance, this Ego mechanism ceases to function with the accomplishment of an Adeptus Minor, but it does not need to be overly reminded that shortly after gaining the Knowledge and Conversation, the Adept confronts with what is described as the “Four Great Princes of Evil.” Thus, the self-realized Adept in a special, almost exalted way has the opportunity to revive the same pattern again, though in its purified form. The Four great Princes of Evil is what our purged nature in Tiphareth projects through the same mechanism which created the Tetragrammaton in the first place – the Four elements from which the “world” is made. A distorted Tetragrammaton, perceived as the idea of “Four Princes of Evil“, that shadow of the memory of what has been transformed into the gold of Tiphareth, in the same way is a negative transfer and the aspect of the Apophis inside IAO formula, we have mentioned before. That memory, which serves not to return through time, but precisely to create the illusion of time, is the same mechanism of rejection to capture the wave of the present, and which is always the same requirement for the creation of neurosis.
Let us go further on some points from Pyramidos. As said, it is a version of the Liber ThROA ritual adapted to individual performance, or self-initiation. What is for discussion is how to include the role of Officers, now when the Initiate is left with himself alone? Is there a room for any “other” in this place of Initiation, was not the Aspirant left to pass alone the dark night of the soul? The Aspirant closes himself inside his Pyramid, and what comes out is everything but “him.”
Therefore, the “proper” performance of ritual can only mean one thing. That Aspirant brought himself into the balance with his inner urge. He discovers that “he” will never pass the Initiation. But his soul already constructs a divine place for itself in the City of the Pyramids, “he” is merely a figure which serves the ritual.
Who clutches at my throat?
Who pins me down?
Who stabs my heart?
I am unfit to pass
within this Pylon of the Hall of Maat.
“I am unfit,” Aspirant says. “For I am what I am,” in fact, he speaks within his Pyramid. How much love and understanding is needed for pronouncing these words in the sacred chamber! This part is one of the most magnificent moments that the Aspirant carries further into the regions of the Rose and Cross. “I am unfit to pass” possesses as much power as truth, and it is a most accurate translation of the name Asar-un-Nefer. At the same time, three great questions correspond to the three great Initiations: “Who clutches at my throat?” – the throat is Daath, the Initiation of Abyss. “Who pins me down?” – down is Malkut, in which the Neophyte is. “Who stabs my heart?” – the heart represents Tiphareth and the birth of an Adept.
The full effect of the ritual is realized on the astral plane, but as the Probationer is not yet been foreseen for this venture, it does not mean that it cannot be performed afterward, with a different understanding and in a different pattern. He will, of course, pass it again as Zelator in the form of Liber HHH, in a certain meditation which corresponds to the astral performance. Because the higher plane is indeed a native residence of this Initiation, its truth must penetrate down to our souls, thus losing its strength, such as power cables that transmit energy to large areas and which would not be useful without transformers. It is good if the Aspirant treats the beginning of the Pyramidos as ending of Probation, while the end of the ritual is the beginning of a Neophyte. And right in this transition from the beginning to the end of the rite, in all what will occur between it, everything that he will need until his Adeptship is hidden.
It is important to note that there are two Pyramidos; first by which the Probationer enters the Neophyte and it is performed only once, the second is the one he is referred to as the once realized Neophyte in order to awaken its formula completely, and it is performed more often during the Grade. The ritual of the Pyramid has one value as Initiation, and the other as a method of raising awareness over the Neophyte’s formula. Therefore, each Neophyte should include this ritual as one of the essential aspects of further work within his Grade.
The essence of the ritual is contained within one single verse. Everything that a ritual is and what should be for the Aspirant is in this verse, magnificent and piercing, so piercing that each Probationer should imprint it in his mind long after the ritual is performed:
Behold! the Perfect One hath said
These are my body’s Elements
Tried and found pure, a golden spoil
Precisely this transformation is all that we need to scrutinize, in which the Probationer finds himself as the Neophyte. The Probationer will never pass the Initiation, no, but a Neophyte is born instead of him as Man of Earth, and now strives to become the Lover of Thelema, the self-realized Adept of Sun, self-slain Ankh-f-n-Khonsu.
Perhaps the Aspirant can find the similarity of Pyramidos with the third degree ritual of Freemasonry; it should be kept in mind that both rituals point to the one same thing. The ritual only serves through archetypes that act strongly enough as a stimulant to the Aspirant’s soul, in order to know the required mysteries in an immediate and direct way. Also, personal initiation, or self-initiation, is always a much more powerful vehicle of Change then the group work, as is the case of Freemasonry. We will freely and equally greet both ways, as long as the Aspirant is driven by the influence of the same Change that transforms his Being in the right direction.
The mystery of Pyramidos is the mystery of the entire universe, the mystery of all life, which if one could be aware of, then he would even overcome the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. It is the truth that you have been lying in the Pyramid all this time, you and nobody else. Even now as you read these words, all of these millennia, you are in the same position, inside your tomb, while you are projecting all this in your mind. All your Grades, all Oaths, tasks and achievements are just a mere fantasy of the Self which lies in its Pyramid. And all the time while you project this, dreaming quietly in the tomb, your soul rushes toward stars; yea, your soul rushes towards stars.
So go forward and further bravely through the night of Pan!
Dare to reach the aim. Moreover, dare to use the mean. A born man occupies the place of other unborn. May that thought haunt you further; both you and your comrades.
Love is the law, love under will.
—Frater 273∴