The Wake World

The second title mentioned by Crowley is also self-praised in his Confessions in glowing terms. He refers to this short text, ‘Wake World’, included in the slim volume Konx Om Pax , as “a sublime description of the Path of the Wise, rendered picturesque by the use of the symbols of the Tarot”. [505]

‘Wake World’, written in 1907, is one of my favourite pieces of writing by Crowley, as it lightly weaves Tarot, Kabbalah and fairy-tale lore with playful humour and profound depth. I recommend it as an essential reading for the Western Esoteric Initiatory System.

It commences with an introduction to Lola, the narrator of the story:

My name is Lola, because I am the Key of Delights, and the other children in my dream call me Lola Daydream. When I am awake, you see, I know that I am dreaming, so that they must be very silly children, don't you think? There are people in the dream, too, who are quite grown up and horrid; but the really important thing is the wake-up person.

The wake-up person, the Fairy Prince, then takes her on a trip through the paths and Sephiroth of the Tree of Life, illustrated by the Tarot. At each stage she is warned not to stop her progress, no matter the temptation. Here we read the path out of Malkuth, corresponding to the Universe card:

Then he said: “Come on! This is only the servants' hall, nearly everybody stays here all their lives.” And I said: “Kiss me!” So he said: “Every step you take is only possible when you say that.” We came to a dreadful dark passage again, so narrow and low, that it was like a dirty old tunnel, and yet so vast and wide that everything in the whole world was contained in it. We saw all the strange dreams and awful shapes of fear, and really I don't know how we ever got through, except that the Prince called for some splendid strong creatures to guard us. There was an eagle that flew, and beat his wings, and tore and bit at everything that came near; and there was a lion that roared terribly, and his breath was a flame, and burnt up the things, so that there was a great cloud; and rain fell gently and purely, so that he really did the things good by fighting them. And there was a bull that tossed them on his horns, so that they changed into butterflies; and there was a man that kept telling everybody to be quiet and not make a noise.

At last, Lola arrives at Kether, and learns to live in the highest realms. However, even at the top of the Tree of Life there is a trap, for the Ain Soph Aur beyond is the truest reality:

I began to see now how very unreal even the Wake-world is, because there is just a little dream in it, and the right world is the Wide-Wide-Wide-Wake-World. My lover calls me little Lola Wide-awake, not Lola Daydream any more. But it is always Lola, because I am the Key of Delights. I never told you about the first two houses, and really you wouldn't understand. But the Second House is gray, because the light and dark flash by so quick it's all blended into one; and in it lives my lover, and that's all I care about.

The First House is so brilliant that you can't think; and there, too, is my lover and I when we are one. You wouldn't understand that either. And the last thing I shall say is that one begins to see that there isn't really quite a Wide-Wide-Wide-Wake-World till the Serpent outside has finished eating up his tail, and I don't really and truly understand that myself. But it doesn't matter; what you must all do first is to find the Fairy Prince to come and ride away with you, so don't bother about the Serpent yet. That's all.

In ‘Wake World’ we see Crowley already applying the Tarot to the initiatory and Kabbalistic structure, and using the images of European tarot decks, rather than the Golden Dawn; he describes the Fool as “being bitten by crocodiles and dogs” rather than the Golden Dawn variant of a young child with a leashed wolf. It would be over thirty years later that this narrative would find its full expression in his own tarot deck.