Waiting with growing impatience for Jones’ return from Paris, and waiting also with dread and foreboding for the next events at Loch Ness, Sir John began studying Crowley’s Book Four. It was indeed a very simple and down-to-earth explanation of the occult arts and sciences—at least in its opening chapters.
Crowley began by rejecting both Faith and Reason as ultimate answers to the mystery of existence—Faith because it may be Faith in the wrong god, the wrong church or the wrong teacher; Reason because it cannot get beyond the permutations and combinations of its own axioms. There remains only the method of Experiment, and Crowley defined every true occult system as a technique of physiological and neurological Experiment whereby consciousness is multiplied and evolution accelerated.
All of this, Sir John realized, came from the Golden Dawn teachings, but—to give the devil his due—Crowley certainly had a gift for explaining it with marvelous clarity and scientific precision.
Book Four went on to explain the techniques of yoga as physiological experiments.
Asana, the contorted gymnastics which Sir John had learned so painfully from Jones, was simply a method of bringing the body to maximum relaxation without actually going to sleep. Pranayama, the special yogic breathing technique, Crowley went on, was similarly a method of bringing the emotions under the control of the Will. Sir John again found himself grudgingly admitting that the Enemy had a real gift for making the occult arts scientifically clear.
The first sinister note entered in the discussion of yama and niyama, chastity and self-control. Crowley denounced all the traditional teachings on this subject as superstitious, pernicious and superfluous; in their place he offered the anarchistic advice: “Let the student decide for himself what form of life, what moral code, will least tend to excite his mind.” This was totally insidious, Sir John realized: while pretending to scientific objectivity, it opened the door to any system of morality or amorality the reader might personally prefer.
Crowley then turned to ceremonial magick and explained it as an aid to yoga. The mind alone, he said, cannot achieve its own transcendence, even by the techniques of yoga, until the Will has become a weapon capable of absolute dictatorship over the body, over the body’s raging emotions and over all mechanical habits. Every technique of magick, Crowley said, was simply a trick or gimmick to aid the student in developing such a self-transcending Will. Moral considerations about the handling of this Will were entirely ignored, Sir John noted; the perversity of Crowley’s system was becoming more obvious.
And then Sir John came to the chapter on Mother Goose.
“Every nursery rhyme contains profound magickal secrets,” Crowley began blandly, in the same rationalistic tone as the rest of his treatise. He then offered an example:
Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
To get her poor dog a bone …
Crowley provided the key to this mystic verse, beginning:
Who is this ancient and venerable mother of whom it is spoken? Verily she is none other than Binah, as is evident in the use of the holy letter H, with which her name begins.
Sir John stared at the page, dumbfounded. It was, damn the man, quite plausible Cabala. Binah was the dark secondary aspect of God, coequal with Chockmah, Divinity’s primary or rational aspect. And Binah is usually symbolized as an old woman, just as Chockmah is symbolized as a white-bearded old man. The Cabalists taught that the vulgar could only understand the male or patriarchal aspect of Divinity, but the first step to Illumination is to understand, by direct intuition, the Most Highest’s feminine, passive aspect. And Hé as the second letter of the Divine Name, Yod Hé Vau Hé, is identified with this secondary aspect of Divinity—because Hé means a window and symbolizes the womb. Crowley was engaged in a very complicated Cabalistic in-joke, to say the least of the matter. Sir John read on with astonishment:
And who is this dog? Is it not the name of God spelled Cabalistically backward? And what is this bone? This bone is the Wand, the holy Lingam!
The complete interpretation of the rune is now open. This rime is the legend of the murder of Osiris by Typhon.
The limbs of Osiris were scattered in the Nile.
Isis sought them in every corner of the Universe, and she found them all except the sacred lingam, which was not found until quite recently.
This was not only sound Cabala but good comparative mythology. Isis, Sir John realized with awe, really did fit in with the dog symbolism, since she was identified with the Dog Star, Sirius. But it was also a wicked parody of Cabala to pretend to find all this in Mother Goose.
Crowley went on to explain the profound mystical meanings in Little Bo Peep (Buddha beneath the bo tree) and her sheep (the Lamb, the Saviour); in Little Miss Muffet (Malkus, the world of illusion) and the spider (Death, the great illusion); and so on, and on, through Little Jack Horner, Humpty Dumpty and all the rest.
Book Four, which had started out as the clearest and most empirical volume on mysticism Sir John had ever seen, had turned into an enormous practical joke on the reader. Sir John found himself remembering Victor Neuberg’s terse note: “No man living understands, or can understand, Aleister Crowley, but those who value their sanity will not get involved with him.”
When Mr. George Cecil Jones returned from his holiday in France, Sir John immediately met with him to recount the whole saga of Lola Levine, Clouds Without Water, The Great God Pan and the Rev. Verey’s dead cat.
The meeting occurred at Jones’ home in the Soho section of London. Jones introduced his wife and children—a pleasant and ordinary English family—and then retired with Sir John to a book-lined study on the ground floor. “You have been meddling with the Abramelin spirits,” he said at once.
“No,” Sir John said, taken aback that his nervousness was that easily read.
“Well, then, they have been meddling with you,” Jones replied. “Tell me all about it.” And he sat with an attentive, but impassive, face—much as he might sit through a business meeting at his chemical company—as Sir John poured out the whole story. There were perhaps a dozen candles about, two in brass candlesticks and several in sconces, so that the room was brilliantly illuminated; but Sir John still felt that each dank shadow that moved contained an adumbration of dark foreboding.
“Well,” said Jones when Sir John’s narrative was concluded, “you have certainly uncovered a very nasty situation, indeed. Are you afraid?”
“Fear is failure and the forerunner—”
“I know, I know; that is what you are supposed to believe,” Jones interrupted. “The question is: How deeply do you believe it at this point?”
“I have my moments of trepidation,” Sir John confessed.
“Only moments? Not hours or whole days?”
“Moments,” Sir John said. “I think that, between the technique of pranayama and the Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, I have learned to vanquish any negative emotional state before it can take full possession of me.”
“That much, at least, is expected of the rank of Practicus,” Jones replied. “If you were put to higher tests, however … If, say, I arranged with a surgeon friend of mine to have you observe while he performed major surgery, or an autopsy … or if I managed to pull the proper strings in government and you were admitted to see a hanging at Newgate Prison … could you stand as a Buddha, clear-eyed, without fear or loathing?”
“Not entirely,” Sir John admitted. “But I have attained such degree of detachment from the body-emotions that I would guarantee not to faint or become ill.”
Jones arose and began to pace the room, silent and inscrutable as a caged panther. “Suppose,” he said finally, “I were to take you on a jaunt to Paris and brought you to one of those clubs, of which you must have heard rumors, where sexual orgies are staged for the amusement of the spectators. Could you watch as a Buddha, clear-eyed, without lust and without the conditioned reflexes of horror from your Victorian upbringing?”
Sir John looked into the
fire, sermons on hell running through his memory. “No,” he said hoarsely. “I think I would be disturbed by both desire and disgust.”
Jones smiled reassuringly. “At least you are honest,” he said simply. He ceased his pacing, drew a chair close to Sir John, and asked quietly, “Suppose I were to instruct you to take the next train to Inverness, go to the home of Reverend Verey, and employ the great ritual of exorcism to expel the forces that threaten his unfortunate household?”
Sir John’s heart sank. “I could not do it,” he said abjectly. “I have not yet sufficient confidence in myself and my control over the astral forces.”
Jones laughed, and clapped the younger man on the shoulder. “Excellent, most excellent,” he said unexpectedly. “You have gone far into a dreadful business,” he continued, his eyes warm with admiration, “and I must allow that I am torn between the highest regard for your courage and the most dismal apprehensions about your foolhardiness. If you had acquiesced in my suggestion about the exorcism, I would have had to conclude that you are not only foolish but suffering from a bad case of premature self-confidence verging closely upon the Biblical sin of Pride. Nobody of the rank of Practicus should attempt what I just suggested. To accomplish an exorcism requires at least the rank of Adeptus Major.”
Sir John breathed a great sigh of relief. “Thank you,” he said, meaning more than two words could convey.
“I will have to think about this overnight,” Jones added. “Perhaps I may even have to consult my Superior in the Order, although I hope this matter is not that serious. Mostly what we have here is malicious mischief, I think.”
Sir John started violently. “Very malicious mischief,” he objected.
“Oh, certainly,” Jones agreed. “But calm yourself a bit and think about the matter more rationally. Have you ever seen me levitate or walk through walls? Do you imagine that I can perform such wonders but have hidden them from you, out of modesty perhaps? I assure you that such siddhis, as the Hindus call these powers, are very rare, and are mostly a distraction from the Great Work anyway. That a group of debauched diabolists is very advanced in the siddhis is simply preposterous, Sir John. They have magnified egos usually, not magnified powers. There is much evil here, certainly, but there is also much trickery and sheer bluff. Let me think upon it.”
DE CLAVICULA SOMNIORUM
Once again that night, Sir John’s dreams were beastly and terrifying. Lola, Lola, Lola was everywhere he wandered in the gnomic caverns of sleep. Old Celine was guiding Sir John through some dark, Hispanic sort of museleum and they came upon Goya’s Maja Naked: the face on the portrait was Lola’s, and her eyes were live, looking into Sir John’s soul with obscene mockery. “Wait,” Celine started to object, “it is only Art …” But Sir John was racing through a garden past a tree around which curled a blue gartersnake the size of a python: under the tree, still nude and mocking, Lola called to him, “See you when tea is hot.” NO TRESPASSING said a sign. “C.U.N.T. is hot,” said an echo. He was in the Boulak Museum in Cairo (where was Celine?) and an ancient Stele was before him showing hawk-headed Horus, a winged globe and the naked star-goddess Nuit. Surgeon Peel sang:
Priests in black gowns are going their rounds
Choking with briars our joys and desires
“Watch Surgeon Peel,” said Surgeon Talis.
Sir John was in Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, examining a most intricately jeweled Eastern Orthodox crucifix. “Speak,” Sur Loin said, “if you see Kay?” And Sir John noted that the initials I.N.R.I, were followed by a smaller script, saying:
Ipsum Nomen Res Ipsa
[Eat It With Catsup]
“The name itself is the thing itself,” Sir John translated. “What on Earth does that mean?”
But the cross became the bodhi of Lola, arms extended, glowing goldly. “Yod: Isis: Virgin Mother,” she said hermetically. “The seamen at dawn.”
“Nun: Death: Apophis, the Destroyer,” said old Verey morbidly. “Sir Talis at noon.”
“Resh: the Sun: Osiris Risen,” Celine added soulfully. “Rest, erection.”
“Yod: Isis: Virgin Mother,” Lola repeated. “Eat it with catsup!”
“Isis: Apophis: Osiris: LAO!” cried a voice like thunder.
THE NAME ITSELF IS THE THING ITSELF, Sir John was writing desperately in his journal: this was too important to be forgotten.
And then it was morning. The birds sang outside, sunlight poured in a golden flood through the windows; and Sir John wondered whether we approach ultimate reality more closely in ordinary consciousness or in the gnomic symbolism of our dreams. He recorded the whole vision in his magical diary before it could fade and went down to breakfast still puzzling over Ipsum Nomen Res Ipsa: The Name Itself is the Thing Itself. I.N.R.I.: Isis, Apophis, Osiris: IAO.
The morning mail contained an oddly shaped package from the Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth, Inverness, Scotland. Sir John tore it open as he sat down to breakfast, and found it contained a letter from Verey and a cylindrical phonograph record. He turned to the letter at once.
Verey’s handwriting was so shaky, now, that it was difficult to read in places. He began without formality:
My Dear Sir John:
The worst has happened. I can scarcely gather my wits to write a coherent account. God help us all.
The night before last, the buzzing and tittering of the weird creatures that lately haunt this misfortunate place became more terrifying than ever. I resolved to make a recording of these sounds, so that others may hear it and judge if it be only my imagination that these bat-winged things were actually aping human speech. Now, I can think of no use for this record except to send it to you. Others, I am sure, would reject it out of hand, saying that I had faked it; playing it back has made me realize that even I would disbelieve it if I had not been on the scene when it was made.
But a worse horror has occurred.
In yesterday’s post there was a package for my brother, Bertrán. I happened to notice that the sender used an abbreviation, M.M.M., which meant nothing to me but was puzzling. Under these initials was an address on Jermyn Street in London, but I cannot recall the number.
While I was reading my own mail, Bertrán wandered into the library to open the package. After a few moments I became aware of a sound that few people, I suppose, have ever heard; at first, I could not decide if it were laughter or weeping. I then realized it was the laughter of hysterical madness. I rushed at once to the library, but, alas, I was too late.
My God, Sir John, as I entered the room, Bertrán already had a hunting rifle held to his head. I shouted, “Stop!” and ran forward, but he only looked at me with mad, terrified eyes and pulled the trigger. I actually saw the disgusting sight of the back of his head exploding and—The details are too hideous to write. I wonder how doctors and policemen ever learn to look on such sights without going mad themselves. Certainly, I must have been mad for a few moments; I remember sitting on the floor, holding Bertrán’s dead body in my lap as a mother might hold a child, weeping. I thought, irrelevantly but with terrible emotion, that the writers of “murder mysteries” do not know of what they write if they imagine such scenes are matters for entertainment. My God, I [unintelligible words] work of Satan.
Then I began to look about for the package that had evidently triggered this inexplicable crisis of suicidal melancholy. I realized suddenly that there was a fire in the grate, where none had been before Bertrán entered the library, and I made the correct deduction. But try as I might, it was too late to save any particle from the flames. I saw only that the object had been a book of some sort—a rather thin volume, it appeared.
I must be off to the coroner’s inquest and will post this on my way. If you can find an M.M.M. on Jermyn Street, Sir John, for God’s sake, do not enter its premises, but please inform me whatever you can learn from outside.
In haste,
C. Verey
Sir John became aware that his poached egg and ham were growin
g cold on the plate. It was not at all clear to him how long he had been sitting, staring into space, the letter fallen to the floor beside him. Mourning doves were cooing softly just outside the window. He was in the real, tangible universe and the forces of nightmare and magick were active here, too, not just in the astral dream realms.
“It wasn’t suicide,” he said aloud, not even realizing that he had succumbed to the symptom of talking-to-oneself. “It was murder.” M.M.M., whoever or whatever it was, had sent Bertrán Verey a book that drove him to choose death rather than continued existence in this universe.
Then Sir John remembered the phonograph record of the “buzzing, tittering” voices. Numbly, like one walking in a dream, he took the cylinder to the music room and inserted it into his phonograph machine.
What he heard—the voices of the creatures afflicting Loch Ness—was an insectoid parody of human speech.
[Buzzing, unintelligible sounds]
[A dog barks with a shrill sound of animal fear.]
DEMENTED FEMALE VOICE
Tae hell! Tae hell! Ye shall all gang tae hell!
MALE VOICE
No escape, no escape, no escape, no escape, no escape, no escape, no escape … [voice degenerates into sub-human buzzing]
SECOND MALE VOICE
That’s right. That’s right. That’s right.
SEXLESS MACHINE VOICE
They’ll all go crazy in that house.
DEMENTED FEMALE VOICE
Aye, they’ll all gae daft. Charlie and Bertie and Annie, they’ll all gae daft.
MALE VOICE [singing]
Charlie’s going crazy, Charlie’s going crazy, Charlie’s going crazy …
THIRD MALE VOICE
The giant cockroaches are coming!
BESTIAL VOICE
The ants are coming …
DEMENTED MALE VOICE
The centipedes are coming …
DEMENTED FEMALE VOICE
No wife, no horse, no mustache!
Masks of the Illuminati Page 18
