Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 1)

Firstly, it represents the complété course of sound. It is pro- nounced by forcing the breath from the back of the throat with the mouth wide open, through the buccal cavity with the lips so shaped as to modify the sound from A to O (or U), to the closed lips, when it becomes M. Symbolically, this announces the course of Nature as proceeding from free and formless création through controlled and formed préservation to the silence of destruction. The three sounds are harmonized into one; and thus the Word represents the Hindu Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva; and the operations in the Universe of their triune energy. It is thus the formula of a Manvantara, or period of manifested existence, which alternâtes with a Pralaya, during which création is latent. Analysed Qabalistically, the Word is found to possess similar properties. A is the négative, and also the unity which concentrâtes it into a positive form. A is the Holy Spirit who begets God in flesh upon the Virgin, according to the formula familial* to students of “The Golden Bough”. A is also the “babe in the Egg” thus produced. The quality of A is thus bisexual. It is the original being — Zeus Arrhenothelus, Bacchus Diphues, or Baphomet. U or V is the manifested son himself. Its number is 6. It refers therefore, to the dual nature of the Logos as divine and human; the interlacing of the upright and averse triangles in the hexagram. It is the first number of the Sun, whose last number 1 is 666, “the number of a man”. The letter M exhibits the termination of this process. It is the Hanged Man of the Tarot ; the formation of the individual from the absolute is closed by his death. We see accordingly how AUM is, on either System, the expres¬ sion of a dogma which implies catastrophe in nature. It is cognate with the formula of the Slain God. The “résurrection” and “ascension” are not implied in it. They are later inventions without basis in necessity; they may be described indeed as Freudian phantasms conjured up by the fear of facing reality. To I. The Sun being 6, a square 6X6 contains 36 squares. We arrange the numbers fiom I to 36 in this square, so that each line, file, and diagonal adds to the same number. This number is 111 ; the total of ail is 666. 46