Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 1)

might suppose that, as ALIM is the masculine plural of the masculine noun AL, its formula wouîd be more virile than that of ALHIM, which is the masculine plural of the féminine noun ALH. A moments investigation is sufficient to dissipate the illusion. The Word masculine has no meaning except in relation to some féminine corrélative. The word ALIM may in fact be considered as neuter. By a rather absurd convention, neuter objects are treated as féminine on account of their superficial resemblance in passivity and inertness with the unfertilized female. But the female produces life by the intervention of the male, while the neuter does so only when impregnated by Spirit. Thus we find the féminine AM A becoming AIMA 1 through the operation of the phallic Yod, while ALIM, the congress of dead éléments, only fructifies by the brooding of Spirit. This being so, how can we describe ALIM as containing a Magical formula ? Inquiry discloses the fact that this formula is of a very spécial kind. The word adds up to 81, which is a number of the moon. It is thus the formula of witchcraft, which is under Hecate 2. It is only the romantic mediaeval perversion of science that represents young women as partaking in witchcraft, which is, properly speaking, restricted to the use of such women as are no longer women in the Magical sense of the word, because they are no longer capable of corresponding to the formula of the male, and are therefore neuter rather than féminine. It is for this reason that their method has always been referred to the moon, in that sense of the term in which she appears, not as the féminine corré¬ lative of the sun, but as the burnt-out, dead, airless satellite of earth. No true Magical operation can be performed by the formula of ALIM. Ail the works of witchcraft are illusory; and their apparent effects dépend on the idea that it is possible to aiter things by the mere rearrangement of them. One 1. AMA is 42, the number of sterility; AIMA, 52, that of fertility, of BN, the SON. 2. See A. Crowley “Orpheus" for an Invocation of this Goddess. 26