8th Aether

And thus shall he do who will attain unto the mystery of the knowledge and conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel:

First, let him prepare a chamber, of which the walls and the roof shall be white, and the floor shall be covered with a carpet of black squares and white, and the border thereof shall be blue and gold.

And if it be in a town, the room shall have no window, and if it be in the country, then it is better if the window be in the roof. Or, if it be possible, let this invocation be performed in a temple prepared for the ritual of passing through the Tuat.¹

From the roof he shall hang a lamp, wherein is a red glass, to burn olive oil. And this lamp shall he cleanse and make ready after the prayer of sunset, and beneath the lamp shall be an altar, foursquare, & the height shall be thrice half of the breadth or double the breadth.

And upon the altar shall be a censor, hemispherical, supported upon three legs, of silver, and within it an hemisphere of copper, and upon the top a grating of gilded silver, and thereupon shall he burn incense made of four parts of olibanum and two parts of stacte², and one part of lignum aloes, or of cedar, or of sandal. And this is enough.

And he shall also keep ready in a flask of crystal within the altar, holy anointing oil made of myrrh and cinnamon and galangal.³

And even if he be of higher rank than a Probationer, he shall yet wear the robe of the Probationer, for the star of flame showeth forth Ra Hoor Khuit openly upon the breast, and secretly the blue triangle that descendeth is Nuit, and the red triangle that ascendeth is Hadit. And I am the golden Tau in the midst of their marriage.⁴ Also, if he choose, he may instead wear a close-fitting robe of shot silk, purple and green, and upon it a cloak without sleeves, of bright blue, covered with golden sequins, and scarlet within.

And he shall make himself a wand of almond wood or of hazel cut by his own hands at dawn at the Equinox, or at the Solstice, or on the day of Corpus Christi, or on one of the feast-days that are appointed in "The Book of the Law".⁵

And he shall engrave with his own hand upon the plate of gold the Holy Sevenfold Table⁶, or the Holy Twelvefold Table⁷, or some particular device. And it shall be foursquare within a circle, and the circle shall be winged, and he shall attach it about his forehead by a ribbon of blue silk.

Moreover, he shall wear a fillet of laurel or rose or ivy or rue, and every day, after the prayer of sunrise, he shall burn it in the fire of the censor.

Now he shall pray thrice daily, about sunset, and at midnight, and at sunrise. And if he be able, he shall pray also four times between sunrise and sunset.

The prayer shall last for the space of an hour, at the least, and he shall seek ever to extend it, and to inflame himself in praying. Thus shall he invoke his Holy Guardian Angel for eleven weeks, and in any case he shall pray seven times daily during the last week of the eleven weeks.

And during all this time he shall have composed an invocation suitable, with such wisdom and understanding as may be given him from the Crown, and this shall he write in letters of gold upon the top of the altar.

For the top of the altar shall be of white wood, well polished, and in the centre thereof he shall have placed a triangle of oak-wood, painted with scarlet, and upon this triangle the three legs of the censor shall stand.

Moreover, he shall copy his invocation upon a sheet of pure white vellum, with Indian ink, and he shall illuminate it according to his fancy and imagination, that shall be informed by beauty.

And on the first day of the twelfth week he shall enter the chamber at sunrise, and he shall make his prayer, having first burnt the conjuration that he had made upon the vellum in the fire of the lamp.

Then, at his prayer, shall the chamber be filled with light insufferable for splendour, and a perfume intolerable for sweetness. And his Holy Guardian Angel shall appear unto him, yea, his Holy Guardian Angel shall appear unto him, so that he shall be wrapt away into the Mystery of Holiness.

All that day shall he remain in the enjoyment of the knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.

And for three days after he shall remain from sunrise unto sunset in the temple, and he shall obey the counsel that his Angel shall have given unto him, and he shall suffer those things that are appointed.

And for ten days thereafter shall he withdraw himself as shall have been taught unto him from the fullness of that communion, for he must harmonize the world that is within with the world that is without.

And at the end of the ninety-one days he shall return into the world, and there shall he perform that work to which the Angel shall have appointed him.

And more than this it is not necessary to say, for his Angel shall have entreated him kindly, and showed him in what manner he may be most perfectly involved. And unto him that hath this Master there is nothing else that he needeth, so long as he continue in the knowledge and conversation of the Angel, so that he shall come at last into the City of the Pyramids.

[1]  A Crowley ritual of this title (also known as Ritual CXX) has been published as facsimile MS., and transcripts posted on the Internet, although the ritual in question does not contain a clear description of the temple, aside from the fact that it contains a ten and a half foot long green porcelain boat, presumably on wheels or runners, which has to circle the temple (which also contains a throne, pylon and altar). In any case I have been reliably informed (private communication) that a revised and more practical version of this ritual survives in an unpublished Crowley MS notebook; in a commentary on Liber 418 (Eighteenth Æthyr) Crowley indicates that only Neophytes or above in A∴A∴ would have access to this ritual (said to be the Zelator initiation).

[2] Storax.

[3] This is the Oil of Abramelin; see The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, Book II, cap. 11; the incense recipe is from the same source; both recipes ultimately derive from the Book of Exodus.

[4] The available evidence tends to indicate that the Robe of a Probationer of A∴A∴ was white with no hood, a pentagram on the front and a hexagram on the back as described. The robe of an Adeptus Minor (according to William Northram’s advertisments in the Equinox) adds an unspecified symbol to this.

[5] AL, II. 36-43.

[6]  A reference to one of the letter-squares received in the Dee-Kelly workings. In “Liber Chanokh” Crowley uses this name for the following table, from which various names on the Sigillum Dei Æmeth are derived (see Dee, “Mysteriorum Liber Secundus”):

[7] This refers to the 3 by 4 table of letters which appeared at the centre of John Dee’s Tabula Sancta or “Table of Practice,” thus:

This is the “Holy Twelvefold Table of OIT” mentioned in the vision of the Fifteenth Æthyr. Note that many print editions reverse the letters left to right; this is believed to derive from an engraver’s error when an image of the table was used as the frontispiece plate in Casaubon’s True and Faithful Relation.