Book 4 (Part II)

dew all lose their identity. And therefore this Cup is in the hand of BABALON, the Lady of the City of the Pyramids, wherein no one can be distinguished from any other, wherein no one may sit until he has lost his name. Of that which is in the Cup it is also said that it is wine. This is the Cup of Intoxication. Intoxication means poisoning, and in particular refers to the poison in which arrows are dipped (Greek ro^or, " a bow "). Think of the Vision of the Arrow in Liber 418, and look at the passages in the Holy Books which speak of the action of the spirit under the figure of a deadly poison. For to each individual thing attainment means first and foremost the destruction of the individuality. Each of our ideas must be made to give up the Self to the Beloved, so that we may eventually give up the Self to the Beloved in our turn. It will be remembered in the History Lection ^how the Adepts "who had with smiling faces abandoned their homes and their possessions — could with steady calm and firm correctness abandon the Great Work itself; for this is the last and greatest projection of the Alchemist." The Master of the Temple has crossed the Abyss, has entered the Palace of the King's Daughter; he has only to utter one word, and all ' Liber LXI, the book given to those who wish to become Probationers of A.-. A...