Confessions of Aleister Crowley

318 The Ar Thiao section. He travels to the infinite East among the hosts of angels summoned by the words. A sort of "Rising on the Planes", but in a horizontal direction. The same remarks apply to the next three sections in the other quarters. At the great invocation following he extends the Shivalingam to infinite height, each letter of each word representing an exaltation of it by {518} geometrical progression. Having seen this satisfactorily, he prostrates himself in adoration. When consciousness begins to return, he uses the final formula to raise that consciousness in the Shivalingam, springing to his feet at the moment of uniting himself with it, and lastly uttering that supreme song of the initiate beginning: "I am He, the Bornless Spirit, having sight in the feet; strong and the Immortal Fire!" (Thus performed, the invocation means about half an hour of the most intense magical work imaginable --- a minute of it would represent the equivalent of about twelve hours of Asana.) Despite the distracting influence of the varied adventures described in the last chapter, I stuck steadily to my practice. On leaving Hong Kong, however, being once again a lonely Wanderer of the Waste, I did feel freer to analyze myself. I thought the necessity of defining the words that I used more closely. There is an indication of this in my entry of April 4th: I foolishly and wickedly put off A.'.; work all day; now it is one a.m. of the fifth. By foolish, I mean contrary to my interest and hope in A.'.. By wicked I mean contrary to my will. A.'. goodish; lengthy and reverie-like. Yet my heart is well. I spake it audibly. Before this time I had been haunted by the first of the two terrible doubts which I subsequently described in sections 36 and 38 of Sir Palamedes, but during the abominable "wind draught" of the first week of March I had made a partial image of this doubt in the "King-Ghost". I did not understand the essence of the doubt and it is hard to explain it in prose, even now. It seems at first sight to be a reflection of the all-embracing doubt of the Abyss. It concentrated itself into the entirely practical question: is there an Augoeides after all? Is there a Path of the Wise? Am I simply fooling myself? And in the "King-Ghost" my only answer is to appeal to the very power whose existence is in dispute. The extreme beauty of the lines, their magic melancholy and their appropriateness to the circumstances of my journey encourage me to quote the poem, which I do: The King-Ghost is abroad. His spectre legions ....Sweep from their icy lakes and bleak ravines Unto these weary and untrodden regions ....Where man lies penned among his Might-have-beens. ........Keep us in safety, Lord, ........What time the King-Ghost is abroad! {519} The King-Ghost from his grey malefic slumbers ....Awakes the malice of his bloodless brain. He marshals the innumerable numbers ....Of shrieking shapes on the sepulchral plain. ........Keep us, for Jesu's sake, ........What time the King-Ghost is awake!